After We Fall
by arithmancywiz
Summary: When tragedy strikes the Malfoy family, Scorpius looks to Lily Potter for comfort. But when tragedy turns to malice, Lily must seek the help of a man who understands what darkness truly means. A man named Severus Snape. Scorpius/Lily Luna
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Prologue**

Lorcan Scamander was not a spy.

He was not a secret agent, a detective, or even a policeman. At the age of ten he was, in fact, not much of anything at all, other than wet and sore from an afternoon spent hiding behind a thick row of overgrown shrubbery. But as it happened, on this day, neither Lorcan's age nor lack of status made any difference to the boy. If courage and determination established one's lot in life, Lorcan Scamander could have been crowned King of England right where he sat.

For Lorcan had a job to do, and he planned to do it well.

For hours now he'd been waiting, sitting crouched beneath the mysterious man's windowsill, his small hands braced against the house's stone exterior. He moved only when absolutely necessary, careful not to rustle the leaves on the overhanging branches, the pointy ends of which kept tangling themselves in the untidy wash of blonde hair that fell nearly to his chin.

Finding the place had been easier than he expected. He'd been given the man's address – which he was happy to find was only a quick walk inland from where he was staying in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. The house itself was a rather modest-looking cottage – not so different from the home he shared with his mother, father and twin brother Lysander. It was single story structure with a low slanted roof and a wooden front door nearly as tall as the house itself. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, dashing any hopes Lorcan had of trying to snag a quick peek inside.

Despite the apparent solitude – the house positioned well off the main road and out of the view of passersby – Lorcan remained cautious, remembering his orders to stay well hidden and out of sight. It was why he was hiding now – why the withered old shrub had immediately caught his eye. It was so large it could have passed for a small tree, growing close against the house, the branches so high they nearly touched the window above. It was the perfect spot – a safe place where he could watch from without being seen, just like she had told him to find. All he had to do now was wait.

The day had been gloomy from the outset, the dense morning fog never truly burning away as the sun remained hidden behind a dark line of rumbling clouds. Hardly more than an hour had passed before the skies opened up and began dumping buckets of cold rain right on top of where Lorcan sat. The slight overhang from the pitched roof provided little in the way of shelter and soon the ground beneath him was slick with mud. The shower was fast-moving, the wind blowing the worst of the storm away and out to the east, but the day remained damp and cold, and as the afternoon wore on, Lorcan's clothes grew stiff and uncomfortable as they clung to his skin, with only his body heat to dry them. His legs began to cramp. Goose pimples covered his bare arms, prickling his exposed flesh. His feet grew so numb he wasn't sure he could stand up anymore even if he wanted to.

Hour after hour passed and the boy just sat there shivering. Despite the discomfort and apprehension he felt, watching the sky grow dark with the approaching twilight, Lorcan remained resolute. Thoughts of his mother back at the reserve making supper and the promise of a warm, dry change of clothes might normally have been enough to send him on his way. But Lorcan wanted his reward. For all his troubles, he'd been promised _five_ whole Galleons. Never in his life had he seen such a fortune. Not on Christmas, not on his birthday. Not even when he'd knocked out his three front teeth and been given a sack full of coins by the Tooth Fairy. And of course, that was saying nothing of the look he'd see on his brother's face when Lorcan finally got the chance to tell him what he'd done. That alone would be worth more than any amount of gold and silver.

Lorcan shifted slightly, his foot sinking deeper into the wet earth. For the hundredth time that day he closed his eyes and concentrated on the small scrap of paper tucked away in his back pocket. Along with the address, Lorcan had been given a tiny square of yellowing newspaper, so old and wrinkled the picture on it didn't even move anymore. The photograph was of a man, his face forever frozen in an awkward half-pose, his mouth open as if to convey a message no one would ever hear.

_This _was the man Lorcan had been sent to find. And _this _was the house where he was supposed to live.

_Just see his face, she had told him. __Just see his face, make sure it's him, and then run home as fast you can._

Though he'd paid attention as best he could, in all the hours he sat there, Lorcan never saw anyone enter the house or anyone depart it. No movement, no flickering lights, no voices or muffled footsteps. He saw no signs of life at all. Perhaps if Lorcan _had _in fact been a spy, he might have noticed something wasn't quite right, for the window he was crouched beneath - the one that was sealed up tight when he arrived - was now unmistakably and undeniably wide open. But Lorcan didn't notice a thing - not until it was far too late.

Large hands shot suddenly through the open window. In one quick movement they had the boy by the shirt collar and were yanking him upward. Lorcan's feet cleared the ground before he even had time to react.

Boney fingers dug into his shoulders. He cried out in pain and surprise as his back scraped across the hard window frame. Instinct took over and he began to kick his legs out widely in all directions, his feet tangling themselves in the heavy window dressings. The effort did nothing to slow his attacker. The large hands just kept pulling. Lorcan was being dragged into the darkened house and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

_THUD!_

The hands loosened their grasp and Lorcan fell inward and onto the floor. He landed flat on his back. His head bounced once, making a loud _THUNK!_ as his skull met the ground below. Dizziness instantly overtook him. He tried to cry out again but found the air had been driven from his lungs. Tears of pain and confusion clouded his vision. He coughed once, jerking his lungs back to life, cool air rushing into his mouth and burning the back of his throat.

Through the darkness he heard more than saw a towering figure creeping toward him, each step making a rhythmic _clump-clump, clump-clump, _as first his cane and then his heavy boots crept closer to where Lorcan lay. Finally, the figure stopped, hovering high above the terrified boy.

"Get up," the stranger commanded. His voice was alarmingly calm, the words quiet and without compassion.

Lorcan couldn't move. He was frozen in horror and pain.

"I said, get up!" Once again the man reached out with strong hands, grabbing the boy by the shirt and lifting him to his feet. Lorcan swayed, his head still spinning. He reached out to steady himself and his hand bumped a small table and something heavy fell to the floor.

"Who sent you here?"

Lorcan was turning frantically from side to side. Despite the open window, the room was utterly and unnaturally black. For a moment he thought he'd gone blind from the blow to his head. But as his eyes adjusted, he began to make out various shapes in the dark. A couch perhaps, and a fireplace. A wooden chest lying open in the center of the room. And there, just in front of him, the hulking shadow man. It was too dark to make out his features, but one thing was unmistakable: the small pin of green light that seemed to be dancing toward him. Lorcan knew instantly what it was – the glowing end of a wand pointing straight at his chest.

"Please!" Lorcan cried. "Don't –"

"Who sent you here?" the voice repeated. He was closer now. The lighted wand tip completely filled Lorcan's field of vision. He tried to back away but bumped into something solid. He felt around blindly behind him. It was a door. He grabbed desperately at the handle. It wouldn't budge.

"Please, sir," he pleaded, still pulling frantically at the door handle. "I just want to go home."

The wand was now only inches from the boy's face and growing closer. His heart was thudding painfully in his chest, his hands slick with sweat as they continued to claw at the door. He was trapped. There was nothing for it. He turned his face away, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself for whatever was about to happen. And then...

Nothing.

Lorcan remained motionless, not even daring to breath. Still pressed against the door, he waited for what felt like an eternity to feel the blow of some terrible curse that would rip him to shreds or leave him writhing on the floor. But nothing came.

Slowly, he opened one eye. The darkness seemed to have faded slightly. Lorcan could now make out the bent frame and sallow face of his attacker. He was older than Lorcan expected, especially considering the strength he had shown, lifting the boy clear off his feet not once, but twice. He was tall and gaunt with long graying hair that grazed his rounded shoulders. His eyes were dark, sunken deep into a heavily lined face. His mouth was thin and twisted into a gruesome sneer. Lorcan expected that at any moment he might curl back his upper lip, revealing pointed fangs dripping with blood like the vampires in the books his mother said he was still too young to read.

With the tiniest sense of relief, Lorcan noticed that the wand that had been pointed straight at his heart now hung limply at the man's side.

When he spoke, the man's voice was just as composed as before, but Lorcan was sure he detected the faintest hint of disappointment. "You're nothing but a stupid child."

Despite his fear, Lorcan felt a wave of protest rise up in his chest. He was neither stupid nor a child. But he held his tongue, still eyeing the wand with apprehension.

"How old are you?" the man asked.

"_Tttt_—Ten," Lorcan managed with a stutter.

"And why were you hiding outside this window, sneaking around like a common Peeping Tom?"

"No!" Lorcan insisted, shaking his head. "I wasn't peeping, honest."

"Then what?" When the boy didn't reply, the man raised his wand ever so slightly.

"Please, no!" Lorcan cried, flattening himself against the door, the handle pressing painfully into his back. "I swear, it wasn't anything bad. I promise. I was just doing her a favor. I wasn't going to hurt anybody, honest I wasn't."

"Who?" The man took a step forward. "Who asked you to come here? And don't lie to me."

Lorcan hesitated but only for a moment, his sense of loyalty outweighed by the fact that he was sure the man would know if he wasn't telling the truth. "_Llll-_Lily,sir. Lily Potter. But she didn't mean anything by it either. I wouldn't have even done it, but she promised me five Gall—"

In an instant the man was on him, his slender fingers digging into the soft flesh of boy's arms as he shook him violently. Bending down so they were nearly nose-to-nose, he could feel the man's warm, stale breath on his cheek, his beetle-black eyes alight with an inner furry, the source of which Lorcan couldn't even begin to fathom.

"I told you not to lie to me!"

Lorcan was crying now, sobs of despair bubbling up from deep in his gut. He was so very desperate to get away, to be back home and safe in his mother's arms, furious he had ever been talked into coming here.

"Honest," he croaked through his tears. "It was Lily's idea. She just wanted me to take a look. Her dad wouldn't help, she said, so I _had _to do it. I didn't mean anything, please-"

He stopped his babbling though the tears continued to flow, and for a moment there was silence. The man was staring so intently at him, Lorcan was sure he could see right through to his brain, which felt suddenly fuzzy and out of focus.

At last the man stepped back, releasing the sniveling boy, whose cheeks were now streaked with tears, his nose red and running.

The man spoke again, very quietly this time. "Get. Out." The hoarse whisper was no longer emotionless. It was low and menacing and Lorcan felt a cold shiver shoot down his spine. "I said, _GET OUT!"_

Lorcan didn't need telling a third time. He jumped, turning on the spot. Pulling with all his might, he felt the rusty handle finally give way and the door sprung open. He burst through it at a sprint. He was back outside in seconds, gulping in the fresh air. Faster and faster he ran, pumping his short legs as quick as they would carry him. But no matter how fast he ran – how much distance he put between himself and that place – he couldn't escape the horrible image of the man now burned into his brain.

He was older now, to be sure, with wrinkles that masked some of his more distinctive features. But Lorcan had no doubt. He knew for sure that the man in that house – the man who had pulled him through the window and shoved a wand in his face – was the same man from the newspaper clipping still tucked safely in his pocket.

What Lorcan did _not _know was that the man from the newspaper was Severus Snape.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Three Weeks Earlier**

Even after seven years there, Scorpius Malfoy still had trouble calling Malfoy Manor home.

It wasn't that he didn't like the place. He'd been visiting it for as long as he could remember, traveling down to Wiltshire with his parents for holidays and long weekends. As a child he'd spent hours running up and down the endless corridors, bouncing eagerly from room to room, fancying himself a pirate or treasure hunter seeking out ancient relics hidden beneath overturned cushions or behind faded draperies. Christmas time had always been particularly special – candles in each window, the tall hedges blanketed by heavy snow, a beautifully decorated tree standing nearly a story high in the main entryway, surrounded by a mountain of presents just for him.

Scorpius Malfoy had always loved visiting the Manor. He just didn't like _living _there.

The ornate grandeur of the place was only part of the problem. While it was true that Scorpius found the Manor to have a coldness that had little to do with the old, drafty windows that stretched from floor to ceiling in almost every room in the house, he was hardly unaccustomed to the stuffy lifestyle that seemed to permeate every family with so-called "old money." His childhood home had been much smaller than the Manor, though still luxurious in its own right, with high arched ceilings and white Corinthian columns running along the base of the row houses that made up his street. It too had been full of expensive-looking items he was not allowed to touch and rooms with doors he was not allowed to open.

No, the real problem with Malfoy Manor was that it was missing something very special to him – something no amount of antique furniture or expensive artwork could ever hope to replace.

In the summer before her death, Astoria Malfoy had been quick to reassure her then eleven-year-old son how big and handsome he was becoming. Scorpius had known it was a lie, the sort of thing all mothers had to tell their children. He was, in reality, rather small for his age – thin and boney, with a sallow complexion, despite a healthy appetite and as much time in the sun as the rainy London weather would allow. He knew he wasn't very strong or fast or even particularly clever, and he had fretted a lot that summer over what would become of him when he started his first year at Hogwarts. When he'd finally gathered up enough courage to relay these fears to his mother, she had looked down at him with one of her knowing smiles before scooping him up in her arms and promising that soon enough he'd be just as tall and good-looking as his father.

Scorpius hadn't believed her at the time, but she had been right, of course. Within six months he'd outgrown almost all of his clothes, the ends of his new robes already brushing the backs of his knees. Astoria had promised her son a trip to Diagon Alley as soon as he returned home for the Christmas holiday. New robes, new jumpers, and if he did well in all his lessons, those new trainers he swore all the other boys at Hogwarts were wearing.

But that trip never came. By the time December rolled around, his mother was already confined to bed. By New Years Day, she was gone. Within weeks, his father had sold their home and moved them in with Scorpius' Grandparents, and the pair had been residing at Malfoy Manor ever since.

Scorpius, now eighteen, was not a child anymore. He had done a lot of growing up in past seven years. The man that stared back at him from the bathroom mirror was now tall and lean, the soft, round edges of childhood morphing into the sharp angles and long muscles of early adulthood. Traces of stubble were visible along the sculpted jaw line of a face finally free of teenage blemishes. He was properly dressed for once, sporting a well-tailored grey suit and matching tie, which worked wonders to hide the last of his adolescent frame.

As he combed his hair, he wondered if the face reflecting back at him was the one his mother had expected him to grow into. He wasn't exactly the spitting image of his father she often claimed him to be, though the resemblance was hard to deny. The face behind the glass held few traces of his mother. She had been blessed with an almost exotic beauty - with dark, chestnut hair and eyes so brown they looked nearly black at times. He was just the opposite, ghost-like and sickly, with pale grey eyes lined with pale lashes, all set against porcelain skin, and topped off with white-blonde hair that curled around his ears.

The Malfoy genes are strong, his mother would say. In terms of appearance, at least, that certainly seemed to be true.

Scorpius set down the brush and turned on the tap. He let the water run for a moment, making sure it was nice and cold before gathering it up in his hands and splashing it across his face. It was so icy it burned his skin. He repeated the process several times before turning off the water and blotting his face with a clean cotton towel.

There was a rap on the bathroom door. A voice on the other side called out, "It's time to go."

Scorpius listened as his father's footsteps faded down the hall. After one final glance in the mirror, he turned off the lights and headed downstairs. Minutes later, the sound of three loud _POPS! _echoed through the house.

Malfoy Manor was empty once more.

When they arrived at their destination only seconds later, Scorpius was greeted with a blast of sea air that was surprisingly chilly despite the fact that it was the middle of summer. Huge gusts of wind had blown in a thick layer of marine clouds that was unusual for this part of the coast. While the sun was doing its best to break through the small cracks in the grey façade, it was clearly a losing battle. A dark line of storm clouds was visible along the horizon, stretching on for mile after uninterrupted mile out over the ocean.

They were standing at the bottom of a hill, cut down the center by a narrow path that zigzagged its way up to the to the top of a steep cliff. One by one the trio began their climb. Scorpius was forced to walk quickly in order to keep up with his father, who remained several steps ahead of him at all times. More than once he found himself stumbling along as the smooth soles of his shoes slid over loose gravel.

When they reached the halfway point, Scorpius stopped and turned around, eyeing the third Malfoy keeping pace behind him. Lucius – his grandfather – was managing better than Scorpius would have expected. He watched as the older man limped along, head bent, leaning heavily on his cane as he fought his way up the steep incline, stopping every few minutes to clear his throat or wipe the sweat from his brow. Scorpius remained where he was for a long moment, intent on letting his grandfather catch up with him, but as the older man drew near, he seemed to gather renewed strength, brushing past his grandson without comment.

Just as Scorpius resembled his father, the same was also true for Draco and Lucius. Both Scorpius' father and grandfather were tall men, naturally thin, though age had left them somewhat soft around the middle. They each shared the same pale skin and long pointed faces, accented by eyes the color of polished steel.

By the time they reached the top, all three men were out of breath, the sound of their ragged breathing drowned out by the wind and the crashing waves. The path they'd been climbing led them to the top of a cliff nestled high above the southern coastline. The base itself was wide but the cliff narrowed sharply as it stretched out of the water, tapering to a point no more than ten feet across.

Scorpius stepped away from the others, walking right up to the very edge. Looking down, he saw that he was surrounded on three sides by jagged rocks that marked the beginning of a very long drop to the ocean below. Inching forward, he allowed the tips of his shoes to clear the ledge, leaving them to hang there in midair as he took in the expansive view that seemed to continue on forever in all directions. It was, to Scorpius, like standing at the very edge of the earth. If he were to take just one more step, he could leave this world altogether, falling into the nothingness of space.

A strong hand touched his shoulder. Scorpius turned to see his father standing behind him, an unreadable expression on his face. Scorpius gave him the kind of smile that could have easily been mistaken for a grimace before taking a few steps back and away from the ledge.

Scorpius' grandfather had joined them again. In addition to his cane, the old man was also clutching a small wooden box. There were no markings on it, no inscriptions of any kind, at least none that could be seen with the naked eye. Scorpius knew, of course, what was in the box, and he found himself less bothered by it than he would have expected. Perhaps because it, just like everything else that had happened over the last three days, seemed so surreal to him, it was almost as it was all happening to someone else. Though he could see the box – knew without a doubt that it was there, within arm's reach - his brain seemed unable to make the connections. It stirred no emotion in him. It was if someone had flipped the switch but no lights were coming on.

Lucius Malfoy stepped forward, passing his cane over to his son. He withdrew the box out from under the crook of his arm, removing the lid and handing that off to Draco as well. Then, inching perilously close to the edge of the cliff, just as Scorpius had done moments before, the old man lifted the box up and out over the ocean. It was if he was offering up some precious sacrifice to a long-forgotten sea god, for whose blessing they were now so desperate to receive.

And then, without further ceremony, Lucius tipped the box ever so slightly and the three men watched in silence as the ashes of Narcissa Malfoy were picked up by the wind and carried out over the ocean.

It was raining by the time they returned to the Manor. He heard his father mention something about an early supper, but Scorpius was already on his way back upstairs. Once inside his room, he made to close his bedroom door but stopped short when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Even without turning on the light, he could see that the window on the far wall had been opened, the wind rushing in and rustling the tall curtains that hung down from the ceiling, the heavy, dark fabric billowing out into the room like a large plume of smoke.

Careful not to slip in the rainwater that had gathered in puddles large puddles on the floor, Scorpius crossed to the window, shutting and locking it in place. From three floors up, his bedroom window provided a panoramic view of the garden below, the vast lawns looking more like a sprawling green ocean than a front yard. The rain leaking down the windowpanes only added to the effect of gazing out over the sea through a ship's porthole.

As he stared out his window, Scorpius saw something strange near the main entrance gate at the end of the long gravel drive. A darkly clad figure was running along the path that wound through the maze of hedges and up toward the main house. Even at that distance, he could tell the person was much too small to be either his father or his grandfather. Whoever it was, they were dressed all in black, a hooded raincoat obscuring their face. Scorpius watched as the figure drew closer, but instead of heading toward the front door, it veered right as if headed to the back garden. Scorpius turned, making it over to the adjacent just in time to see the person round the house and enter the side yard.

A great gust of wind blew then. It rattled the shutters on the house and blew the stranger's hood straight back. Bright red curls tumbled out, flying every which way in the wind.

For the first time in days, Scorpius felt himself smile.

Lily Potter had arrived at last.

Even at a run, it took Scorpius several minutes to make his way through the garden hedges and down to the spot where he knew Lily would be waiting for him.

He could still recall the day the two of them had first stumbled upon what would become their secret hiding place. They had spotted it while wandering about the garden, looking for wild flowers Lily could take home to her mother. And suddenly, there it was, half obscured by a large Hawthorn tree, the roof looking like it might give way at any second. At one point, it had probably functioned as a carriage house or servant quarters, but by the time the pair of them had discovered it, the tiny structure with the dark timber beams and tall stone chimney had been relegated to little more than a long-forgotten storage shed.

Stepping inside, they had found every visible corner stuffed to bursting with musty old furniture and rotting wood crates, all of which Scorpius was sure had been there longer than even his grandfather could remember. Large oriental rugs had been rolled up tight and left propped against the walls. Oversized coat racks and rickety-looking tables had been piled one on top of another, all of them covered in several inches of dust. Every room felt damp and cold, the smell of wet dirt rising up through the floorboards, which had begun to disintegrate with age. Between several large cracks, Scorpius could see the pointed ends of large tree roots working their way up through the softened wood. All around them, they could hear the scraping of tiny claws as who knew what type of creatures went skittering around in the blackness. It felt to Scorpius like the earth itself was trying to reclaim the house from the inside out.

Scorpius remembered suggesting that they should take a match to the place and put it out of its misery, but Lily had fallen in love with it on the spot. She had somehow seen past all the years of neglect and decay, insisting that with a little work, they could turn it back into something wonderful. Scorpius hadn't really understood her fascination with the tiny house, but he'd been willing to play along. She'd always been able to get him to agree to just about anything.

It was hard to believe that more than five years had passed since then. It was one of the best summers they had ever spent together – it was also the last summer they had spent together. Lily stopped coming around much after that. She had stopped doing a lot of things in the years that followed. Scorpius had tried visiting the place a few more times on his own but found that without her, the old house was just an old house once more.

The door was already open when he arrived, the strong smell of wood rot greeting him as soon as he stepped inside. The room he entered was dark, but there was just enough light filtering in through the leaded glass windows to illuminate the path they had created through the towering mess all those summers ago.

When he finally caught sight of her, she was sitting on the floor, her back towards him. She had removed her coat and was using it as a makeshift rug spread out before the stone fireplace. Her wand was out and he watched for a moment as she sat there shooting small purple sparks into the empty hearth. They seemed to dance in midair before melting away into the blackness.

"I didn't think you'd come."

Lily remained where she was, giving no indication at all that she had heard him speak, though Scorpius was sure she knew he was there. Her attention was still focused on the fireplace, as if staring at it long enough might cause it to burst into flames.

Scorpius stepped forward, settling down on the floor beside her. He looked at her in profile, the muted lighting casting long shadows across her face. Lily Potter was a very pretty girl. It wasn't the sort of thing Scorpius had always noticed, but once he was old enough to recognize it, it had proven nearly impossible to ignore. She was small and thin, but not too thin, with delicate features that were perpetually overshadowed by the mess of red hair that tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. Her round face was accented a thick wave of freckles that ran across the bridge of her nose. They had faded some as she aged, but even in the darkness he could still make them out. Lily had always hated her freckles, especially during the summer month, when the sun would turn her already pink skin a deep shade of red. He remembered fondly how she'd been forced to wear these ridiculously over-sized hats whenever the two spent time outdoors. Scorpius had thought they made her look like a kid playing dress-up. Lily had thought they made her look like an old maid.

She was still refusing to look at him, focusing instead on the stream of sparks she continued to expel from her wand. They were small and fast, like tiny smokeless fireworks that evaporated on contact with the cold stone. It was a cute bit of magic, Scorpius thought, if somewhat pointless.

He watched as she cast one final spell, a burst of bright-pink flame that popped and hissed before veering off into the darkness. Once it was gone, she set her wand down, finally turning to face him. "So why did you bother asking?"

"What?" Scorpius asked, not at all sure what she was talking about.

"You said you didn't think I'd come. So why did you bother asking me to?"

"I...dunno," he said. It was a fair enough question, though he hadn't a clue how to respond. "I was just...hopeful, I guess. Does it matter?"

Lily shifted slightly and a long strand of damp hair fell across her forehead. It was so red it looked to Scorpius like a freshly garnered scar, the irony of which was not lost on him. She wiped at it with the back of her hand, tucking it behind one ear.

"Well, it seems like at least _one_ of us ought to know what I'm doing here, don't you think?" She seemed to direct this question more to herself than to him, not bothering to wait for a reply before adding, "Though I _am _sorry to hear about your Granny."

"Errr...thanks, I guess." Scorpius was struggling to keep up with the rapid change in subject matter.

"It wasn't in the papers. I checked after I got your letter. I thought it might be, what with your family and all, but there was nothing, far as I could tell."

Scorpius didn't miss the offhanded comment about his _family_, but he found he wasn't really bothered by it. He knew she hadn't mean it as an insult, not the way some people did.

"That will be Dad's doing, I expect," he said, though she hadn't really asked for an explanation. "The way he's acting, I'm not surprised he wants to keep it quiet. Not that I'm all that bothered, mind you. I mean, about it not being in the papers."

His mother's death had taught Scorpius that grieving was a private affair. As far as he was concerned, the less people that knew about his grandmother the better. That way, at least, they wouldn't have to play host to crowds of so-called well-wishers, who were really just eager to get their noses through the door and snoop around. Still, it surprised him that it hadn't received so much as a mention in the papers. There weren't a lot of old wizarding families left anymore, and the passing of one of their own usually warranted at least a _few_ lines on the back page of _The Daily Prophet._

"Or maybe," he added, thinking out loud, "people just don't care about us anymore."

Lily looked at him curiously. "That's a bit cold, don't you think?"

"I don't mean it like that. I just meant...Well, it's not exactly like we're the most popular people in the neighborhood. Maybe they left it out of the papers for a reason." Lily pursed her lips, clearly unconvinced. "Oh, come off it," he said, recognizing the look she was giving him. She thought he was being insensitive. She had always nagged him about things like that. "It's not exactly as if they're beating down our door for dinner invitations."

"Well, I'm sure somebody would care, _if they knew_. I mean, how are people going to know to come to the service if nobody even bothers to tell them she's...gone?"

"Well, _that_ won't be a problem," Scorpius said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "There won't _be _any services. It's already done with."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, they cremated her. Did it yesterday. We only just got back from...getting on with it...right before you showed up."

"Yesterday? Isn't that sort of quick? I mean, don't these things usually take time?"

Scorpius shrugged. "That's what I'm saying. Everything that's going on...It's all happening so fast. Something's just not right."

"Are people in your family...I mean, are they usually...cremated?" She seemed to struggle with the word, clearly uncomfortable with the morbid turn their conversation had taken. "That's not typical for wizards, is it? And I've seen your family plot. It just over there."

She pointed over her right shoulder, indicating the small cemetery where just about every Malfoy who had died over the past three hundred years had been laid to rest. Scorpius had shown it to her the same summer they had discovered the house they were now sitting in. He had meant it to be cool and scary, a place he could show off how brave he was, walking among the old, crumbling tombstones. But Lily had hated it, insisting they leave straight away and never come back. She said it wasn't natural to have so many dead people in one's back garden.

Scorpius shrugged again. "Like I said in my letter, the two of them – Father and Grandfather both – they haven't been right since it happened."

And with that, they fell into silence once more, either unwilling or unable to continue discussing such gruesome matters while held up in such a depressing little place. At least that's how Scorpius was feeling. Now that he was back there, he found the small house was just like everything else these days – it reminded him of Lily and how absent from his life she had become.

Desperate to keep from dwelling on the things that had passed between them, Scorpius forced himself to say something –_ anything _– to fill the silence. "Did Al get his exam scores yet?"

Albus – or Al as he was better known at school – was the younger of Lily's two older brothers. He and Scorpius had been in the same year at Hogwarts, both having graduated together just a few weeks before. They hadn't exactly been mates, but they'd got on well enough. In truth, the two probably hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words over the better part of the last three years, but it wasn't as if they actively disliked each other. Mutual indifference was probably the most apt description for their relationship, though there had been a time at the start of last term when Scorpius feared he might end up on the wrong end of one of Al's curses – or worst, on the wrong end of his fist.

"Not yet," Lily said, sounding miffed. "But he won't shut up about how glad he is to be done. He's laying it on pretty thick at the moment. Like he's got such big plans or something, and I'm _really _missing out by having to go back."

For the first time since starting at Hogwarts, Lily would be returning alone next year, without either of her brothers or her cousin Rose. Scorpius knew her well enough to know how much this bothered her - how she often felt one step behind the rest of her family.

"It won't be so bad," he said. "You'll be busy with studying and all. You probably won't even have time to—"

She cut him off then. "I don't want to talk about school, do you?"

"Errr, no? I mean, I guess not." When she failed to say anything else, he asked, "Then what _do_you want to talk about?"

"Do we have to talk at all?" She sounded exasperated now, as if she were having to explain something very simple to someone _very _stupid.

"I suppose not..." He tried to give her a half-hearted smile but she was no longer looking at him. She had already picked up her wand and was once again shooting sparks into the fireplace.

And so they just sat there, Scorpius watching as Lily alternated between creating small colorful flames and slowly moving smoke rings, unconcerned about doing underage magic, knowing she was well within the property lines of three fully qualified wizards.

After a time, she seemed to grow restless. Her spells were becoming more erratic, sometimes missing the fireplace altogether. Scorpius worried she might burn the place to the ground if she wasn't careful, the old furniture acting as more than enough kindling to bring the whole place down on top of them. He was about to point this out to her when she abruptly stood up.

"I should go."

"What? No!" Scorpius said, jumping to his feet, Lily now staunchly refusing to meet his gaze. "You...you only just got here. Please stay, just a little while longer. I promise, I won't bring up school again." He was surprised by how high his voice was, how anxious the thought of her leaving was making him feel. He was upset, agitated that their meeting was not going as planned. "Stay," he pleaded.

"For what?" she snapped, finally looking him square in the face. "What do you want from me, Scorpius?"

Scorpius recoiled, taken aback by the unexpected flash of anger in her voice. "Nothing...I don't want anything...I just –"

"Just what? We aren't friends anymore. Do you understand that? We haven't spoken in months. Maybe longer. And then this letter from out of the blue, begging me to come and see you...?"

"Well, you didn't have to come," he fired back. Now it was his turn to get angry. Her use of the word '_beg' _had been an unexpected shot to his ego.

"Of course I did! And _you _knew it."

He had no reply to that. She was right. He _had _known she would come if he asked her to. It wasn't in her nature to turn people away.

"I should go," she said again, snatching her coat up off the floor and flinging it over her shoulders. "No one even knows I'm here."

By '_no one,' _Scorpius knew she meant her parents. It didn't take a genius to figure out they wouldn't be happy to find her there. He couldn't imagine what they must think of him these days. Not that it had always been that way. For years the two had been friends, their parents grudgingly allowing the unlikely relationship to play out on its own. Had they not been so young at the time, he might have thought of Lily as his girlfriend – not that they had shared much more than a few innocent kisses. But then, after last summer, things were altogether different.

"Fine!" he shouted at her. "Just go. See if I care." He was breathing heavily now, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and anger as the blood began to surge through his veins. He could feel the muscles in his neck begin to tighten.

Lily's own anger seemed to ebb slightly as a look of genuine concern crossed her face. "Scorpius...I..."

But Scorpius didn't want to talk anymore. _"Just __GO__!"_

For a moment she stood frozen to the spot, too shocked to move. But she quickly recovered herself, and with what Scorpius was sure were tears in her eyes, she turned and disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, he heard the door slam shut behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"You're an idiot. You know that, right?"

The verbal assault began just as Lily finished pulling shut the heavy iron gate that marked the entrance to Malfoy Manor. She hadn't seen him right away – still distracted by her unpleasant encounter with Scorpius - but she would recognize that know-it-all tone anywhere.

Albus Potter stepped forward from beneath the elm tree where he had been waiting and into the center of the dirt road that served as the only non-magical connection between the Malfoy property and the nearest muggle town. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes squinting against the sun that had just begun peaking through the last of the rain clouds.

"Thanks for the update," she said without pausing, purposefully bumping into her brother's arm as she pushed passed him, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes.

"Hey! Watch it, will you?" he shouted, clearly not noticing that she'd been crying. "That's my bad shoulder."

Lily didn't respond. She just kept walking. She'd had no interest in getting into a row with Al, having already had her fill of fighting for the day. Besides, what did she care about his latest Quidditch injury anyway? It's like she kept telling him: stop being such a git and maybe the other players will quit trying so hard to knock you off your broom. And it wasn't as if he got paid for all that banging about. At least their mother had been a professional player. Al's idea of _professional _was him and his mates racing around in the back garden, doing their best not to be seen by the neighbors.

After a long pause, she heard the sound of running footsteps coming up the road behind her, and she picked up her already hurried pace.

"Slow down, will you?" he called. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

She stopped then, spinning on her heels. Al had to throw his hands up to keep from slamming into her. "I don't need you or anyone else checking up on me. Got it?"

"Hey, relax. What's got your wand in a knot?"

"None of your business. I'm of age now, so you can just back off!"

"Nice try," he said. "But you've still got a week left until your birthday, and you know what that means."

Lily groaned. "You're worse than Dad."

She was walking again, though at a more modest pace, allowing Al to keep up. She noticed with satisfaction, however, that he was careful to leave a fair bit of distance between them incase she decided to take another swing at his arm.

"What are you doing here, Lils? Really?" He was using his grow-up voice now, one she had a hard time taking seriously. It was still difficult for her to think of her brother as an adult. He certainly didn't act like one. But of course, unlike her, he was _officially _of age – a true and proper wizard.

"Visiting," she said, being intentionally vague. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Oh, come off it. Don't give me that _visiting _crap. I know he sent you post. So what's going on, really?"

Lily nearly did a double take. _"You read my post?"_

"Hey, I'm not a total snoop. You're the one who left _this _sitting out on the kitchen table."

They had stopped walking again and she watched as he reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled out a folded envelope. Lily recognized it at once as the letter Scorpius had sent her. Albus held it out to her and she snatched it away from him.

"A bit of advice," he said. "If you don't want people to know your business, don't leave your letters lying out for the world to see. You're just lucky it was me who found it."

Lily winced. He was right, of course. It had been careless of her to leave it sitting where anyone could have found it. What if one of their parents had gotten to it first? Lily would have had some serious explaining to do then.

"But if you didn't read it," she said, turning the letter over in her hand, "then how did you know where I'd be?"

Al grinned, gesturing over at the envelope. "The Malfoys aren't exactly a subtle bunch."

She looked down at the letter still clutched in her hand. Unfolding it and smoothing out the wrinkles, she spotted something she hadn't noticed before. In the top left corner, where the return address would normally be, there was instead a beautifully scripted green _M_, the swooping tail of which seemed to be twisting and looping as it glided smoothly across the front of the envelope.

"Ooooh," she said, watching with fascination as the emerald ink slowly formed the letters _A-L-F-O-Y._

"Yeah, _Ooooh _is right. Told you I'm not a snoop."

Lily hastily refolded the letter and tucked it safely into her coat pocket. "Alright, I'm sorry."

"I guess I can forgive you...just this once. But really," he said, his voice serious again. "What's going on here?"

Lily sighed.

It was eerie how much he looked like their father, especially now. While she had inherited her mother's slender features and flame-colored hair, Albus was the spitting image of their dad, and he seemed to grow more like him with each passing day. Short but solid, they each sported copious amount of untidy brown hair that was perpetually falling into their bright green eyes. While she had been cursed with an abundance of freckles, his face was clear and smooth, just like their father's. And it wasn't just their appearances either. Over the years, Al had developed the habit of sticking his nose in other people's business. This might be a good trait for someone working as an Auror, but it wasn't exactly endearing in an older brother. Not that Lily hadn't been accused of the same thing on occasion.

She sighed again. "You promise you won't snitch to Mum and Dad?"

"Have I ever?"

"Alright," she said, and Lily began to tell her tale.

Al proved a good audience, listening without interruption as she filled him in on what Scorpius had written to her, about how his Granny Malfoy had died and how his father and grandfather were being strangely silent about it. She told him too about the brief but unpleasant encounter in the cottage – leaving out the bit about how she'd run out of there crying. She didn't her brother to think she was a baby.

When she was done, he seemed to take it all in for a moment before saying, "But I still don't get it. I mean, I'm sorry his grandmum died, but what's that got to do with you rushing over here?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It was just...He didn't sound right. There was something strange in that letter."

Al kicked at a large stone and watched as it bounced ahead of them down the path. "Strange how?"

"I don't know," she said again. "Just _strange_. I thought if I came over here, if I saw him face to face..."

"And?"

"And nothing. We argued and I left. That's all."

"Did you ask him about it? The letter, I mean."

Lily shook her head. "No, not specifically. We talked about his grandmum a bit, but then I got upset and he got upset, and that was that. I don't know. I wonder if...I wonder if maybe he just needed to see me."

Al seemed to consider that. "Well, maybe that's it then. Maybe he wrote to you all cryptic-like so you'd be worried and come running over to check on him. A bit manipulative, if you ask me, but Scorp seems the type."

"I'm not sure that's it. I think there's more to it than that."

But Al wasn't to be dissuaded. "Come on, Lils. You've said it yourself; he's a lousy git when it comes to girls. Maybe you just _want _there to be more so you have an excuse to start coming over here again –"

"You don't know what you're talking about!" she snapped. "I never said anything of the sort. Don't you put words in my mouth, _Albus Severus._" She took her time, dragging out each syllable in his name, knowing how much it annoyed him to be addressed by his full title.

"Oh, right, I forgot," he mocked, hand on heart. "Last summer, the one you spent crying to Mum about how awful he was - how much he hurt you and how you'd never forgive him. That was all just my imagination, I suppose? You locked yourself in your room for a month. It was pathetic."

Lily punched her brother square in the arm.

"Owww!" he screamed, grabbing his shoulder.

"You deserved it, you creep."

Lily stomped off down the road, and this time Albus let her go.

They stayed like that for a long while, her marching ahead, him bringing up the rear, rubbing at his sore arm. Below them, the first glimpses of town came into view at the bottom of the hill. The sun had managed to fight its way through the last of the clouds and the smattering of buildings seemed to shimmer and sway as the light reflected off the last of the raindrops.

An old car rumbled slowly up the lane toward them. Lily stepped aside, allowing it to pass. It coughed and sputtered as it rolled by, spitting large plumes of exhaust fumes out of its rusty tailpipe. By the time the clunking of its engine had faded into the distance, Al had seemed to gather his nerve, catching up with her once again.

"Hey, Lils?" His voice was soft, little more than a whisper.

After a long pause she said, "Yeah?"

"Do me a favor, will you? Just think hard before you get tangled up with Scorpius again, okay? I don't want to see you get hurt. Will you do that for me?"

Lily said nothing. She just kept on walking.

Though she'd never admit it to him, Lily _did_ think about what Albus said. She was so preoccupied with it, in fact, that she hardly even realized she'd agreed to let Al Apparate them both back home until she felt that disquieting tug deep behind her navel. It didn't seem to matter how good a person was at Apparating – and Al was really good with complicated magic – the whole experience was so dreadfully unpleasant, Lily could understand why so many wizards chose not to bother with it at all.

The house was empty when they arrived. Al muttered something about ice for his shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen. Lily ambled up the two flights of stairs and down the narrow hallway that led to her bedroom, stripping off her raincoat as she went. Being the youngest of the Potter children, she'd been relegated to the smallest room in the house, made to feel even smaller by the large desk and oversized wardrobe that stood half-open against the far wall. But at least she'd never had to share the room with anyone. She got her fill of bunkmates during the school year. A little peace and quiet made for a nice change – not that things were ever really all that quiet at home, particular with her eldest brother James stopping by every other day to nick some food or beg their mum to wash his dirty socks.

From somewhere below, Lily heard the steady _THUMP! THUMP!_of a bass issuing from the Wireless. Tossing her coat on the floor, she slammed her door shut and collapsed onto her unmade bed, unsure what to do next. She made a half-hearted attempt to read the first chapter of the latest girl-meets-wizard romance novel one of her fellow Gryffindors had lent her for the summer, but quickly gave up on it, fling the silly book aside before reaching instead for the letter still tucked in her jacket pocket.

Unfolding it, she began to read it for the second time that day.

_Lily,_

_I don't know if you'll actually read this once you realize who it's from, but I hope you do. I didn't know who else to tell._

_My Grandmother is dead. We found her body two days ago. Her body. Those are Father's words, not mine. I can't think of her like that. I was the one who found her, just after it happened. I didn't know one person could leave behind so much blood. Is it supposed to be that red? I've begged them – Father and Grandfather both – to tell me what happened to her, but if they know, they won't say. If I try and ask, they just get angry and tell me it doesn't matter. That it won't bring her back. I can't help but wonder if she —_

He stopped there, crossing out whatever came next before continuing on.

_I think she might have hurt herself or something. Maybe like an accident. I can't think how but she was getting old. Still, it just doesn't add up. Not with all those wounds. Dad says the sooner it's all over the better off we'll all be. That we just need to pick up and move on. I don't know what to think._

_If you're not too busy, if you've even read this far, it would be great if you could come. I could really use someone to talk to. Please. We could meet you-know-where._

_Don't tell your Dad, okay?_

_Scorpius_

Lily read through the letter several more times, hoping to see something she hadn't noticed before. But nothing jumped out at her. Nothing except that one horrible line:

_I didn't know one person could leave behind so much blood._

Even as she thought on it, the words seemed to climb up and off the page and straight into her heart like the sharp blade of a cold knife. She shivered.

Lily considered again what Al had said to her, about how Scorpius might just be using it all as an excuse to see her. But she couldn't make it fit. Could Scorpius really make something like that up just for attention? Surely even he wouldn't sink that low. It was all so gruesome it almost _had _to be true.

There was a loud knock at her door. Lily nearly let out a shriek. Heart thudding, she quickly stuffed the letter and its envelope under her pillow.

Another knock.

"What?" she called, stacking a second pillow on top of the first and smoothing out the edges.

"Mum's home." It was Al's voice. She relaxed a bit. "She says if you want supper you better get your butt downstairs and help."

"I'm not hungry."

She heard him sigh through the door. "Fine. Whatever."

She waited for a moment, listening as his footsteps retreated down the hall. When she was sure he was gone, she removed the letter again. Pulling out her wand, she tapped the parchment once and whispered, _"Evanesco."_

The words disappeared.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

The weekend came and went and Albus, true to his word, didn't mention a thing to their parents about Scorpius' letter or Lily's impromptu visit to Malfoy Manor. This, however, hadn't stopped him from throwing furtive glances her way whenever the two passed each other in the hall, or else from eyeing her curiously across the dinner table whenever he thought their parents weren't looking. Unfortunately, Al wasn't nearly as clever as he fancied himself to be, and it wasn't long before their mother began to grow suspicious.

"What's going on with you two?"

It was Monday afternoon and the house had been unusually quiet all day. Albus was sitting on the sofa, flipping through a magazine, his feet propped up on the coffee table. Lily was seated across from him in her father's recliner, her legs dangling over the armrest as she read through the latest catalog from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"Nothing," the pair replied in unison, neither of them quite able to meet their mother's gaze.

Ginny Potter was not one for tolerating a lot of nonsense, especially from her own children. She wasn't a particularly tall woman, but she had an imposing presence, an air of confidence that gave the illusion of more height than her actual size warranted. Planning to spend the rest of afternoon at the office, she was dressed in a set of royal blue robes, the rich color making her red hair look even more vibrant than usual. A large leather satchel was slung over one shoulder, and in her arms she carried several large envelopes that Lily suspected were full of letters from her readers.

For the past eight years – ever since her eldest son had started at Hogwarts – Mrs. Potter had been working as a sports reporter, writing articles for various magazines and newspapers. She had started off as the senior Quidditch correspondent for _The Daily Prophet – _a job she was more than qualified for, thanks to years spent playing profession Quidditch. But recently, she had begun branching out from her usual discussions of Quaffle regulation and player trade speculation to include reflections on life as a working mother and the role of magic in raising a modern family. If the volume of responses she got to her columns was any indication, Lily assumed her mum must be very good at her job.

"Enough is enough," Mrs. Potter said, looking first at Al and then over at Lily. "The moping and lying about has got to stop. It's depressing."

"I'm not the one who's been moping," Al murmured under his breath, his nose still buried in his magazine.

Her mother ignored him, keeping her focus directly on Lily. "I don't know what's eating your socks these days but it's time to snap out of it."

Her mother wasn't an insensitive person; she just didn't put up with much in the way of self-pity. She was sympathetic, to a point, but she couldn't tolerate sulking about when things didn't go your way. If there was a problem, you worked to fix it. Simple as that.

And truthfully, it wasn't as if Lily didn't want to _'snap out of it.' _She just wasn't sure what _'it'_ was. Ever since her encounter with Scorpius, she'd felt distracted, unable to keep her focus. She found herself wondering aimlessly about the house, unsure of where to go or what to do next.

Her mother, it seemed, had the perfect solution for just such a problem.

"You want us to do _what?"_

It was later that evening and the three of them – Lily, Albus and their mother – were seated around the dinner table, their father not yet home from work. Whether as a result of their strange behavior or simple because she was too busy to take care of it herself, Mrs. Potter had come up with a plan to get both of her children out of the house and off doing something constructive.

"I've already discussed it with your father," she said, ignoring Al's outburst and passing Lily the basket of dinner rolls. "Seeing as neither of you have any plans of your own, we're going to let you take on a little more responsibility this summer. Your father and I haven't had a good look around the place in ages, so there's no telling what kind of shape it's in. At best, it's going to need a top-to-bottom cleaning before we can even _think _about getting anyone else in there..."

_'There' _was Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place – a four-story brick house that had once belonged to Sirius Black, a man who had died many years before Lily was born but who her father still spoke of fondly. Lily could only recall ever visiting the place on one occasion – when they returned there to bury a house-elf named Kreacher. She knew her parents had lived there for a time just after they were married, but they moved out long before James was born. Why they had abandoned such a large house in favor of a smaller one so far from the city center, Lily never understood.

As far back as she could remember, her parents had been renting the place out to various wizarding families who were looking for a little extra security and privacy in the heart of muggle London. The Boulstridges had been living there on and off for the past few years. Mr. Boulstridge did something or other for the Department of Mysteries. Lily didn't know much about Mrs. Boulstridge or their son Zachary, who was several years younger than she was and had just started at Hogwarts.

_"Clean out Grimmauld Place?" _Albus whined. "But that stuff is for house-elves."

That earned him one of their mother's more reproachful stares.

Al had the good graces to go slightly pink in the cheek, though it didn't stop him from reminding their mum about his upcoming trip to see their Uncle Charlie.

"Me and Hugo have been planning it for months."

"That's not for another few weeks yet," she said. "You can get plenty done on the house before then."

Al had no ready reply for that, though he was quick offer up several more feeble excuses as to why he couldn't waste his precious time cleaning out some musty old house. He only stopped his pleading once he realized he wasn't being expected to volunteer his services.

"You mean you're gonna pay us?" he asked. "Like with _real _money?"

Ten Galleons each, it turned out, was the going rate for a few week's worth of cleaning. They were to receive the first five upfront, and the rest after the job was done.

For her part, Lily wasn't thrilled at the prospect of spending her summer cleaning up someone else's mess. Still, as she thought on it later that evening, lying awake in bed, she couldn't see any way around it. And it wasn't as if she had anything better to do. What was the alternative – sitting around the house, trying to convince herself she wasn't thinking of a certain blonde-haired boy she used to know? Maybe the distraction would do her good.

By eight o'clock the next morning, Lily, Albus and their mother were standing in the front hall of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, all three pairs of arms loaded down with every brand of cleaning product known to wizard and muggle alike.

"Bit of an overkill, don't you think?" Al whispered in Lily's ear as their mother tossed them each a set of scrub brushes and two pairs of rubber gloves.

Lily had to agree. They had enough supplies there to clean half the homes in London.

"If you two had seen this place when I was your age..." Mrs Potter said, looking around and taking it all in. "What a disaster. You wouldn't have believed the mess. It was practically unlivable."

Al pushed past Lily, crossing beneath the large chandelier and over towards the row of portraits that hung along the far wall.

"What happened there?" he asked, pointing at a gaping hole situated between two empty picture frames. It looked as if one area of the wall had been set on fire, the flames put out before they could spread to any of the surrounding portraits but not before they had done some serious damage to whatever had been hanging there. In one spot, Lily could actually see right through the plaster and straight into the room that lay on the other side.

Mrs. Potter smiled to herself as if recalling some private joke, but she offered up no further explanation on the matter.

The three of them spent the next few hours traveling from room to room, taking note of any areas that were going to need extra attention. While Lily wouldn't go so far as to say that the Boulstridges had _trashed _the place, it was apparent from the general state of things that they had left in rather a hurry. The rubbish bins were full, the moldy remnants of a very old steak and kidney pie still in the fridge. They had even left a few personal items behind – jumpers in the wardrobe, a book left open on a bedside table.

"We'll pack it all up in case they come looking for it," their mother said, carefully extracting out a pair of men's socks that had been wadded up and stuffed behind the toilet.

And then there was the general wear and tear one expects to find in a centuries-old home. More than once, Mrs. Potter stopped to point out a spot where the paint had begun peeling away from the wall, or where a rusted pipe had sprung a leak, leaving behind a large brown stain on the ceiling. The list of things to do was growing longer by the minute and Lily couldn't help but wonder what she and Albus had gotten themselves into.

It was nearing noon by the time they reached the top floor. Unlike the three floors below, the space up there was small, with low ceilings that slanted down at odd angles. There were only two rooms up there, one on either side of the hall. Though it should have been warmer that high up in the house, Lily noticed the air was unusually cool and seemed to stir slightly, as if being circulated by some invisible fan.

Mrs. Potter stepped to her right, disappearing behind the first door only to reemerge a few second later. "Doesn't look like the Boulstridges ventured up this far. I don't think anyone's been in there in years."

Lily glanced over her mother's shoulder. The room beyond was small, with much of the floor space taken up by an oversized four-poster bed. Or at least, Lily _assumed_ it was a bed. She couldn't really be sure. All the furniture was buried beneath an odd collection of yellowing tarps and mismatched bed sheets. Whether they had been placed there to protect the furniture or to hide them from view, Lily wasn't sure.

The three of them turned their attention then to the only room in the house they had yet to inspect. Albus got there first, reaching out and grabbing the doorknob. He turned it, but nothing happened. He jiggled it slightly before trying again.

"It's stuck," he said, continuing to pull at it. When it handle still refused to move, he took out his wand, tapping the lock and shouting, _"Alohomora!"_

The door didn't budge.

"Let me try," their mother said, waving him aside.

Albus stepped back, watching as their mother pulled out her own wand, casting a few well-aimed spells straight at the center of the door. When they failed to so much as put a dent in the varnish, Mrs. Potter just shrugged, tucked her wand back into her pocket, and said, "Your father can deal with _that_ later."

Finally done with their tour of the house, the trio made their way back downstairs and into the main entryway.

"That bath on the second floor is going to need replaced," their mother said. "I don't know of any spell powerful enough to get rid of that much rust. It's eaten right through to the bottom. Still," she said, flashing them a smile, "I trust you two can find enough around here to keep you busy."

Keeping busy, Lily was sure, was _not_ going to be a problem.

"Where do you want to start?" Al asked once their mother had finally departed, though not before issuing them a stern warning about staying out of trouble.

"I don't know. Do you want to work together, or do you think it would be faster if we split up? You work upstairs, I'll start down here?"

"Sounds good to me."

And with that, they headed their separate ways. Lily figured she might as well tackle the worst of it first and set off for the kitchen. The smell of rotting food was growing stronger as the afternoon sun warmed the house to an uncomfortable level. She began her work by emptying the cupboards, pulling down half-filled cartons of cereal and sticky jars of jam and tossing them into the bin. After all the shelves had been emptied, she set about wiping down the cabinets and countertops.

She did the work by hand, pausing only once when she came across a particularly nasty looking green stain on one of the kitchen chairs. No matter how much Mrs. Scower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover she used, the stain refused to fade. Lily was sorely tempted to pull out her wand and blast the darn thing off, but decided it wasn't worth the risk. She hadn't a clue what kind of security spells might be placed around the house, preventing those inside from doing underage magic.

So she let it go for the time being, and after several more hours of hard work, the kitchen once again began to resemble a place where something might actually want to eat. She still hadn't gotten around to cleaning the floors or emptying the pantry, but she had made a good start of it and, despite her exhaustion, was pleased with what she had accomplished.

Lily was just about to drag the rubbish bin down to the curb when she heard a loud _BANG!_ ring out from somewhere overhead.

She stopped what she was doing, crossing to the door and sticking her head out into the hall.

"Are you alright up there?" she called, but there was no response. "Albus?" she called again, louder this time. But she was met with only silence.

Curious now, Lily made for the stairs, continuing to call out her brother's name as she wound her way upward, searching through the second floor, and then the third. She was just reaching the landing on the top floor when she finally spotted him.

He was lying in the center of the hallway, sprawled out flat on his back. And he wasn't moving.

"Al!" Lily cried, running towards him. She dropped to her knees, placing her hands on his chest. She could feel his heart beating faintly against his ribs. "Al, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

Al remained perfectly still, only the shallow rise and fall of his chest assuring her that he was still alive. Lily shook him, calling his name again and again, but he wouldn't wake up.

"Albus, please!" she begged. But there was still no response. Unsure what else to do, Lily was just about to run off to find help when – with a flood of relief – she saw his eyelids began to flutter. At long last, they opened, and he stared up at her. "Albus, you scared me! Are you alright?"

For a moment he just looked at her, his expression blank. Then, finally, comprehension began to set in. "I – Yeah, I think so..."

"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Is anything broken?"

Al lay there for another moment, seeming to take stock of himself, wiggling first his fingers and then his toes. At last, he nodded. Everything _seemed _to be in working order. Once she was sure it was safe to move him, Lily helped maneuver her brother into a sitting position, propping him up against the wall.

"I was in the kitchen when I heard this loud thump," she said, sitting back on her heels, still eyeing him carefully. "I thought you were up here messing about. What happened?"

"I... I don't know," he said, speaking slowly. "I mean, I was just standing there..." He pointed across the hall. "I'd just finished cleaning up one of the baths on the third floor, so I came up here, and..."

"And what?"

"I don't know. I reached out and then... Well, next thing I know, I'm lying here on the floor, looking up at your ugly face."

"Hey!" Lily started to protest, but then she caught the grin on her brother's face and she let out a laugh. "Well, next time I find you passed out on the floor, I'll be sure to keep my distance." She was just about to say something else but stopped short when she saw the small patch of bright red blood that had started to gather along the collar of his shirt. "Al, you're bleeding!"

"What?" He lifted his hand, dabbing at a spot on the back of his head. When he pulled it away again, she could see that his fingers were covered in blood. "I guess I am."

"We should get help."

Lily made to stand up but Al reached out to stop her. "No, I'm fine. It's nothing."

"It's hardly nothing. You're bleeding..._from the head!"_

"It's just a cut. I must have crashed into the wall before I hit the ground."

If that was meant to put her mind at ease, it wasn't working. "Al, I really think—"

But he cut her off. "Honestly, Lily, I'm alright. I swear."

She paused, staring at him for a long moment before finally relenting. "Well, let's at least get you cleaned up. Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Putting an arm around his waist, she helped him to his feet, leading him downstairs and into one of the bathrooms, where she quickly settled him on the edge of the bath. She began digging around in the cabinets and under the sink, returning a moment later with a couple of damp towels and a small bottle of rubbing alcohol.

She used one of the rags to wipe away the blood that was still trickling down his neck. Once that was done with, she folded a second towel in half, pouring a generous amount of the alcohol onto one corner.

"This may sting," she warned him. Al said nothing, but she heard him inhale sharply as she dabbed at his wound. "There," she said after she'd cleaned the area as best she could. "All done."

"Thanks," he said. "I'm practically good as new. Well, good enough..."

"I could try a healing spell if you want. Though, to be honest, they aren't exactly my specialty."

Al shook his head. "Don't worry about it. It hardly even hurts anymore."

Lily didn't believe that for a second but she kept her opinion to herself, gathering up the dirty towels and laying them over the edge of the bath to dry. When she was done, she once again helped him to his feet and back out into the hall.

"You never did say what you were doing up there." Lily was looking over at her brother, who had stopped at the bottom of the stairs that led back up to the fourth floor. He made no reply, and a thought occurred to her then. "You were trying to open it, weren't you? You were trying to get through that door."

Al said nothing, continuing to stare up at the ceiling, looking as if he half-expected it to give way at any second, sending whatever was up there crashing down on top of them.

"Don't you think it's a bit odd?" he asked, finally looking over at her. "I mean, whoever sealed that door, they must have meant business. Have you _ever_ seen Mum fail to blast her way through something?"

Lily thought about it. She supposed it _was_ a bit curious, come to think of it. It must have been some serious spell work if neither her mother nor her brother could manage to work their way past it.

"I guess—"

"So what's the point?" he demanded. "I mean, what's in there that needs protecting so bad?"

"I don't know. This house is full of all sorts of weird old stuff. It could be anything." She paused then, another much more unpleasant idea suddenly coming to mind. "Are you...I mean, do you think that what happened — that it was because you tried to get inside?"

"Almost had to be. What else could it have been?"

"But nothing happened when we were up there before. Mum tried to get in too and she didn't end up half-dead on the floor."

"I don't know, Lily. I don't know why it happened the way it did. But I'm telling you, there's something weird going on."

"What do you mean _weird?"_

Albus just shook his head. "I don't know. But whatever it is, for ten Galleons a piece, I'm not getting paid enough to find out."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

After a long debate during which Lily repeatedly told her brother he was being thick and he, in turn, told her she was being a hypocrite, the pair agreed _not _to tell their parents about Al's unfortunate mishap at Grimmauld Place.

"But I still don't understand what the big deal is. It's not like you're going to get in trouble."

The two had just arrived back home. Once Al had convinced Lily he was well enough to Apparate, the two made quick work of gathering up the day's cleaning supplies, lining them up just inside the front door before locking up and heading out. Seconds later, they were stumbling out of the darkened tool shed tucked into the far corner of the garden – the one that had been designed to conceal the Potter family's unusual method of coming and going from the prying eyes of their muggle neighbors.

"It's _not _a big deal," Al told her. "That's the point. It was nothing, so why bother mentioning it?"

"But don't you think they ought to know? It's their house, after all. And what about Dad? Mum's gonna to send him over there to take a look one of these days, and then what?"

They had already been through all of this before, but Lily couldn't help herself. She just didn't understand her brother's sudden change in attitude. He was the one who had insisted that something odd was going on, but now he seemed content to pretend the whole thing never happened.

"Dad will be fine. He can take care of himself. Besides, nothing happened the first time we tried to open the door. Chances are nothing will happen the next time. It was probably just a fluke or something."

They entered the house through the back door. It was dark and still inside. Despite having spent the entire afternoon cleaning, it seemed they'd still managed to return before either of their parents arrived home from work.

"Well, I still think –" Lily began again, but Al cut her off.

"What happened to not being a snitch, huh? I keep your secrets, you keep mine."

Lily had no good reply for that. Albus _had_ kept her visit with Scorpius a secret... at least so far. She supposed it was only fair that she did the same for him. Besides, it wasn't likely that either of their parents would be dropping by Grimmauld Place again any time soon. These days, her father barely had enough time to eat dinner at home, let alone spend the day fixing up an old house no one was even using. Still, the whole thing left her ill at ease, not to mention more than a little curious. It was obvious that Al had ended up on the wrong side of a pretty powerful spell, but as to who cast it and why, she didn't have a clue. Just _what _exactly was hiding on the other side of that door?

In the end, Lily decided to let the matter drop, leaving Al to his own devices as she headed off to her room, anxious to change into some fresh clothes after a day of very dirty work. She hadn't even managed to make it halfway through the door before she spotted it: the small white envelope resting on the edge of the bed, her name printed across the front in a very familiar shade of green ink.

Lily looked around automatically, like a naughty child expecting to be caught with her hand inside the cookie jar. But the room was empty, not a soul in sight. She crossed to the bed, picking up the letter and turning it over in her hand. After checking again to make sure she was truly alone, Lily sat down and tore open the envelope.

_With a little luck, great things are possible. -Scorpius _

Lily turned the piece of paper over, expecting to find more, but there was nothing. She flipped it back again. Still nothing. She looked inside the envelope, as if hoping here might be a second, longer letter she hadn't spotted before. There wasn't, of course, but there was..._something._

A four-leaf clover, no bigger than a fifty pence piece, had been tucked in alongside the note, coming to rest in the corner of the envelope, stuck between two of the folds. Surprised, Lily reached in, carefully extracting the tiny object, holding it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. It was small, delicate looking, the same vivid shade of green as the ink Scorpius used in his letter, with pale white markings that formed a diamond shape across the center of the leaves. She pressed the flower gently against her palm, softly stroking the smooth petals, thinking about Scorpius' mysterious note.

_With a little luck, great things are possible. With a little_ _LUCK_—

Lily jumped.

The tiny clover, still resting in her hand, had begun to move. It was subtle at first, the leaves gently vibrating against her skin. But then the shaking began to increase, the petals bending back and forth as if waving in the wind, the whole thing seeming to dance across the surface of her palm. The longer she watched it, the more vigorous the trembling became. Faster and faster it moved, and before long the clover was shaking and spinning so violently it was little more than a blur of green light against the pale pink of her skin.

With a faint _pop!_ the tiny clover vanished. What was left in its place was the smallest butterfly Lily had ever seen. There it sat, perfectly still, its spindly legs so thin Lily could hardly feel them as they rested against the palm of her hand.

Careful not to move too fast and risk scaring it off, she slowly lifted her arm, bringing the creature up to eye-level. As she examined it with a mixture of surprise and delight, Lily realized the butterfly hadn't just _replaced_ the clover – it had been created _from _it. She could see now how the four leaves had folded and twisted until they formed a perfect set of miniature wings. The stem had been transformed too, shrinking and swelling as became the creature's body and head, complete with two bulbous black eyes – one on either side – that seemed to be staring directly up at Lily.

"Hello there," she said, unable to stop herself from smiling. "That was a rather clever trick you just pulled." The butterfly wiggled its antennae and Lily's smile widened. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell me how you managed that one?"

In lieu of a reply, the creature flapped its tiny wings, hovering a moment above her still outstretched hand before taking flight and heading straight for the door. After hesitating for only a second, Lily stood up and followed after it.

If anyone in her neighborhood thought there was anything odd about seeing a nearly grown woman marching down the sidewalk, playing a silent game of follow-the-leader with a butterfly, no one said as much to Lily. For the next half-hour, she pursued the creature, chasing it up and down the city streets, making her way past any number of houses and shops, many of which were already closed for the evening. Overhead, the sky was starting to grow dark, the deep shades of purple marking the approach of the summer twilight. Yet the butterfly flew on, never pausing for more than a moment, and Lily – for reasons she dared not consider just then – felt compelled to follow.

When the creature finally_ did _stop, Lily found herself in a part of town she wasn't all that familiar with. She was standing on the outskirts of a park, one probably reserved for the children who attended the nearby primary school, which had been boarded up for the summer holiday. There were two rusted football goals set up at either end of a long field, though the grass was too overgrown now for anyone to play a proper game of sport. Lily had a nagging suspicion she'd been to the spot before, only she couldn't for the life of her remember when.

"It worked then, I take it?"

Lily let out a squeal of surprise, lifting her hand to her heart and spinning round on her heels.

"Scorpius!" she cried. Scorpius Malfoy was standing just feet from where she stood, hands tucked into his pockets, his face partially obscured by the branches of the overhanging trees. "You scared me half-to-death! You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

"Sorry," he said, stepping forward and out of the shadows. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's alright," she said, though her heart was still beating widely in her chest. "I just didn't see you there, is all."

He took several more steps towards her, and when they were only inches apart, he reached a hand out to her. For a moment, Lily thought he meant to brush his fingers against her cheek, but his hand kept going, aiming for a spot just above her shoulder. The butterfly that had been hovering there landed eagerly on his palm. As he drew back his arm, Lily saw him curl his fingers into a tight fist.

"Don't!" she cried, thinking he meant to crush the poor creature with his bare hand.

Too late. His fingers were already opening again. With relief, Lily saw that the butterfly hadn't been squashed. It had disappeared, and left in its place was the little green clover.

"Neat, huh?" Scorpius asked, wiggling his fingers in her direction. She could tell by the grin on his face that he was feeling rather pleased with himself. "Come on," he said when Lily failed to look impressed. "You're not even going to crack a smile? I came up with that one just for you, you know. Here, look again."

For a second time, Lily watched as he squeezed his hand into a tight fist. When he opened it again, palm still facing upward, she saw that the butterfly had returned, looking just as it had before – not a wing or antenna out of place. When this still failed to elicit the response he was hoping for, Scorpius shrugged, closing his fingers for a third time. He kept them clenched a long time, and when he finally opened them again, she saw that his hand was completely empty, no butterfly or clover in sight. He looked at her then, staring out from beneath heavily lidded-eyes.

"You shouldn't trick people. It's rude." Her words sounded childish, even to her, but she didn't like the way he was looking at her, as if expecting her to be impressed by his silly little ruse.

_"Trick?"_Scorpius repeated. "Where's that coming from? Who did I trick?"

"You tricked me. Tricked me into coming to meet with you. You had that – _that_ _thing_– lead me straight here."

Scorpius looked as if he were struggling to suppress another smile, which only served to infuriate her further. "Well, who did you think you were coming to meet then? I mean, you knew where that letter came from. You didn't have to follow "_that thing"_if you didn't want to."

The fact that his answer made perfect sense only made Lily all the more indignant. "How was I to know I was meeting anyone? I'm not a mind reader."

The look on her face must have warned Scorpius just how annoyed she was because she saw his smile begin to falter. "You're not really mad about it, are you?" Lily said nothing, which he seemed to take as a bad sign. "Come on, don't be like that. I only meant it as..." He paused, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I don't know...as a peace offering, I guess. I felt bad, you know – for yelling at you. And I just wanted to say I was sorry about that. I thought you'd like it. I guess it was kind of...stupid."

He was looking at her so earnestly then that Lily felt her irritation begin to ebb. She could tell he was trying really hard to make amends. And although she would never admit it to him, a part of her _had_known exactly where that butterfly was leading her.

"It wasn't _stupid,_" she said. "I suppose it was actually rather cute...the magic, I mean. It's some sort of transfiguration spell, obviously. But how did you get it to change like that? It's something to do with the hand, right? But how did it know where to go?"

Scorpius gave her a half-hearted shrug. He looked deflated, as if things weren't going as well as he hoped. "It's no big deal," he mumbled. "I could show you it sometime...if you want."

Scorpius was looking down at his feet now, and Lily followed his gaze, noticing for the first time that they were standing on a small patch of dirt that marked the end of a walking trail that wound around the edge of the park.

"Fancy a stroll?" she asked.

Scorpius perked up at the suggestion, perhaps just as glad as she was to have something better to do than stare awkwardly at one another. So they turned and headed off, their pace relaxed, unhurried. They said nothing as the walked, with only the sound of their trainers crunching over gravel to fill the silence between them.

The path was all but deserted. The only other person they came across was a woman out walking her dog. She eyed them wearily as the three grew close, as if worried that two teenagers out alone at that time of day could only mean trouble. But she said nothing to either of them; she just picked up her pace and hurried past, the little yellow mutt yipping at her heels.

By the time the woman was gone and out of site, Lily had worked up enough courage to ask Scorpius about what she was sure was already weighing on both of their minds. "Is there any more news...about your Granny?"

Scorpius shook of his head, loosening a few strands of blonde hair, which proceeded to fall across his forehead and into his eyes. "Nuh-uh," he said. "If anything, Father and Grandfather are being more silent about it than ever. Actually, they're being silent on just about everything. I bet Dad and I've not said more than five words to each other the whole weekend."

"That can't be true—"

"It is. I swear. And Grandfather's no better. He's hold up in his study from the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed. He hardly even comes out to eat. And when he does, he just nicks something quick from the kitchen and back in he goes."

"I suppose he must really miss your grandmother. They must have been together for a long time."

"Yeah, and I get that. Really, I do. And Gran was great. But that's no reason to lock yourself up, right?"

"I don't know. Isn't it?"

"I can't figure it. Neither of them seem to want to leave the house. And they don't want _me _going anywhere either. I barely managed to sneak out tonight. I don't know what they think is going to happen. I mean, she's already dead. What else could go wrong?"

Even as they talked, Lily felt her mind drifting back to the conversation she'd had with Albus, about his suspicions that Scorpius might be telling her tall tales, or at least exaggerating things to make the situation sound more mysterious than it was. But if Al was right and Scorpius _was _making it all up, her former friend was a better actor than Lily could have imagined. There was an undeniable ring of truth in what he was saying. His words were earnest and held no hint of self-pity. There was just confusion, and if Lily wasn't mistaken, a hint of loneliness in his words.

"I'm sure they'll come around," she said. "Maybe they just don't know what to say. I'd imagine it's a pretty big shock, seeing someone like that. I guess these things take time, right?"

"Yeah, well, I hope they hurry up is all. It's like they just want to forget it ever happened. It's like if no one talks about it – about _her _– it's like she was never there. Know what I mean?"

This time Lily said nothing, for in truth, she _didn't _know what he meant. Not really. She'd never lost anyone close to her before. Well, there had been her Great-Auntie Muriel, who had died not long after Lily started at Hogwarts. But the woman had been ancient, nearly one hundred and thirty years old, and she'd been in poor health for ages. And then there was Scorpius. He'd already suffered through losing his mother when he was only eleven. Now his grandmother was gone too. It just didn't seem fair.

The stars were out now, twinkling in the night sky overhead and reminding Lily of tiny, far-off Christmas lights. The crickets had come out too, chirping in the tall grasses that grew along either side of the path.

"It's getting late." They spoke the words in unison, smiling at each other when they realized what they'd done.

"I could walk you home...if you like."

Lily considered Scorpius' offer, weighing the hazards of walking the darkened streets alone against what her parents might say if they caught sight of her late night escort. Deciding the danger she knew was better than the danger she didn't, she agreed.

They said little as they went, walking side-by-side, stealing glances at one another before quickly turning away again. More than once, Lily felt Scorpius' knuckles brush gently across her own. She knew it was only by accident, but she could still feel a rush of pink heat rise up in her cheeks, and she was, in that moment, thankful for the darkness

Lily was all too aware of how easy she was finding it to slip into an old familiar rhythm with Scorpius. The knowing looks, the long silences neither of them felt obligated to fill. There were moments when it felt like they were children again, heading off to play in their secret hideaway tucked among the trees behind Malfoy Manor. But they weren't children anymore. And they _weren't _friends. All that had ended long ago, and Lily hadn't forgotten why.

By the time they reached her street, the old-fashioned gas lamps that lined either side of the road had sprung to life, small circles of yellow light shining down on the pavement below while the surrounding houses remained blanketed in shadow.

"This is my stop," Lily said, pausing just out of view of her own front door.

Scorpius smiled, looking around. "It's been a long time. Hasn't changed much, has it?"

"It never does." Then against her better judgment, she asked, "What will you do now?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Wander around, I guess. Don't feel much like going home at the moment."

Lily could understand why, and for the briefest second, she was tempted to ask him if she could come along. They could go somewhere – _anywhere_. Just the two of them. Just like it used to be. But that was silly, and she scolded herself for even thinking such nonsense. She didn't want to run off with Scorpius...

He was smiling down at her, and she wondered for a moment if he could read her thoughts.

"Did you mean it?" she asked, suddenly eager to change the subject. "When you said you would teach me that trick of yours?"

"What, with the butterfly? Sure, I can teach it to you. Like I said, it's pretty easy, once you know what you're doing." When she continued to stare up at him, he added, "What, you mean like right now?"

"Unless you've got something better to do..."

Scorpius grabbed her hand, leading her over to a small gap nestled between two large hedges that ran along the edge of her neighbor's property. It was dark back there – none of the streetlights able to penetrate the thick branches. But the darkness also meant that is was well hidden from the road, out of view of any muggles who might just come wondering by. Once they were both tucked safely inside, Scorpius explained the principal of the trick to her, which was a lot more complicated than Lily would have thought. Next he showed her the necessary wand movements, going over them several times until she was sure she had it down.

"Here," he said, plucking a leaf from one of the overhanging branches and passing it to her. "Give it a try."

Lily pulled out her wand. With the leaf in one hand, her wand in the other, she whispered the incantation just as he had instructed. She flicked her wrist, mocking the intricate motions he had just demonstrated.

But nothing happened.

"That's all right," he said. "Just try it again."

She concentrated harder this time, imagining the way the leaf had spun and twirled, the way it felt in her hand as it morphed into the tiny butterfly. Raising her wand for a second time, she repeated the spell and...

_BANG!_

There was a blinding flash of light. Lily was knocked off her feet and sent tumbling into one of the nearby bushes.

"Are you okay?" Scorpius was standing over her, looking down at her where she lay.

Lily blinked several times; bright white spots danced in front of her eyes. "I...I'm fine," She tried to push herself up but her clothes and hair had gotten tangled up in the surrounding branches.

"Here." Scorpius reached out a hand to her and she took it. With a gentle tug, he pulled her up and set her on her feet again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Lily nodded. "Yeah, I think so." She looked down at her elbow, which had a few nasty scratches on it but didn't seem to be bleeding.

"That was something else." Lily looked over at him. Scorpius was clearly on the verge of laughing, the corners of his mouth twitching as he struggled to contain himself.

"It's your bloody spell," she shot back, though she too found herself struggling not to laugh. "You could have at least warned me."

"Hey, it works just fine for me. That one, I'm afraid, was all on you."

Still smiling, he leaned forward, picking a leaf out of her hair. Lily became aware then that he was still holding her hand. They were close now. Very close. She could detect the faintest whiff of something spicy emanating from his clothes and skin. Of course, that only served to remind her that she was still dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing while cleaning out Grimmauld Place.

A disembodied voice called out from somewhere in the darkness. _"Lily? Is that you?" _

It was her mother's voice, and she didn't sound happy.

"Looks like we've been found out," Scorpius said, letting go of her hand but still holding the leaf he'd pulled from her hair.

"Sounds like it.

"I guess you better go..."

"I suppose so. Well...goodnight, Scorpius."

Lily made to walk away, but he reached out a hand to stop her. "Lily?"

"Hmmm?" she asked, spinning back around.

"If I were to write you again...I mean, proper like, no tricks. Do you...Do you think you might meet me again sometime?"

_"Lily?" _It was her mother again, and she sounded closer this time.

"I have to go," Lily said, and he nodded, releasing her arm from his grasp.

_"Lily Potter, are you out here?"_

Lily gave Scorpius one final wave goodbye for stepping out from between the bushes, calling, "Yes, Mum. I'm here. I'm coming!"

She'd only gone about two paces when she stopped. Without thinking it through, without giving herself a chance to change her mind, Lily whipped around, tucking her head back between the narrow opening in the branches.

Scorpius looked up in surprise.

"Yes!" she whispered. "I'll meet with you again."

And without another word, Lily turned back around and ran home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Lily was in serious trouble.

She had known it the instant she heard her mother call out to her in the darkness. And sure enough, within seconds of arriving back home, Lily found herself on the receiving end of an exhaustive telling-off, during which her parents tossed around a lot of phrases like _poor judgment_, _truly dangerous_, and _worried sick. _

Catching their daughter doing underage magic right outside their own front door was only half the problem – and Lily hadn't bothered to deny it either, though she was quick to assure her parents that she'd been alone at the time. Worse still was the fact that her parents had arrived home from work to find their youngest son covered in blood and Lily nowhere in sight. Al, it seemed, hadn't seen fit to change out of his soiled shirt and was forced to admit to their parents that there had been an accident at Grimmauld Place. This, combined with the fact that Lily had run off without bothering to tell anyone where she was going, meant that Mr. and Mrs. Potter were already in a state long before Lily ever pulled out her wand.

When it was all over, Lily found herself grounded for three weeks, her resulting cries of indignation doing nothing to lessen her sentence. She was finally forced to retreat to her room, stomping up the stairs and slamming her door shut as loud as she could in one final act of defiance. She threw herself onto the bed, still fully dressed. She was so angry she couldn't even take solace in the fact that Albus had been forced to come clean to their parents about his little mishap. Though as neither her mother nor her father had mentioned anything about locked doors or dangerous spells, Lily was left to assume she wasn't the only one who had been telling half-truths that evening.

Lily spent much of that night lying awake, staring up at the ceiling, stewing over her punishment. By the time dawn began to break, having hardly slept a wink, Lily found herself in an even fouler mood than when she'd gone to bed. Al seemed to sense her sour disposition and did his best to stay out of her way. The two hardly said a word to each other as they set about their work at Grimmauld Place early the next morning, avoiding each other entirely until much later that afternoon.

"I'm beat," Al said. He had just come downstairs, having spent the better part of the day scrubbing toilets and washing old bed sheets. He didn't look to be in a particularly good mood either, slouching in the doorway of the small pantry where Lily was still hard at work. "Are you almost done in here?"

Lily jumped down off her stepstool, careful to avoid knocking over any of the many potion bottles that now littered the floor. The Boulstridges, she'd quickly discovered, had designated the top shelf of their kitchen pantry as the perfect spot for housing their extensive collection of potion ingredients. She'd been working to remove them, taking them down one by one and sorting them into three groups: those that would be safe to throw away, those that might be worth keeping, and those that she just didn't recognize.

She used the legs of her jeans to wipe the dust from her hands, looking around at her progress. "Not really. But I guess you can head on without me. I can catch up in a bit."

Al pulled a face. "Sorry, no can do. Mum said I wasn't to let you out of my sight. Once we're done here, I'm to take you straight home."

_"What?"_Lily said, nearly kicking over a jar of pickled slugs. "You mean to tell me that not only am I grounded, but I've got a babysitter now too?"

"Hey," Al said, throwing up his hands. "Their orders, not mine."

"Well, you think you'd ease up a bit about it seeing as how I'm in this mess because of you."

"_Me?_What did I do?"

"It's more like what you _didn't _do. You could have told Mum and Dad what really happened, like I said to from the beginning. Instead, you don't even bother to clean yourself up. Sitting around in a shirt covered in blood? You really are as thick as you look."

"You're not in trouble because of me. You're in trouble because you ran off without telling anyone where you were going. Not to mention casting a spell loud enough to wake every muggle from here to Caerphilly. Doing magic in the middle of the street – have you gone mental?"

"I hardly _ran off_," Lily said, bending down and moving some of the bottles into an empty wooden crate. "I left for a while, then I came home. That's completely different. Besides, you were the one who said you were fine. What exactly was I supposed to be hanging around for?"

"Don't take it up with me. Tell them if you've got a problem with it. I'm not the one who grounded you –" Al stopped then, wrinkling his nose. "What's that smell?"

She stopped too, sniffing at the air. After a moment, the scent reached her. It was horrible – a putrid mix of burning hair and spoiled meat. _"Uggh,_ what _is _that?"

"There!" Al shouted, pointing down at a spot just off to Lily's left. She turned to look.

A dark green smoke was seeping out from beneath the stopper of one of the potion bottles she'd sorted into the "do not recognize" pile. As it hit the air, the smoke expanded and spread with alarming speed. Within seconds, the small pantry was completely enveloped in a thick toxic haze.

"Open the door!" Lily yelled, trying not to retch as she buried her mouth and nose in the crook of her arm.

Al, coughing and sputtering, pulled blindly at the door before finally managing to yank it open. They both flung themselves through before slamming it shut behind them.

"What do we do now?" They were back in the main kitchen, and Lily could already see the first tendrils of smoke slipping in through the crack beneath the door.

"Let's get out of here."

"We can't just leave! What if it's poisonous or something?"

"Exactly! Now move!"

He was tugging at her the sleeve of her shirt, but Lily stood her ground. "There are muggles next door! What about them?"

Al stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, before finally sighing and releasing his grip on her. "Fine," he said, "but we've got to move fast. Get me a bucket. Anything with a lid."

Lily nodded, running automatically to the closet on the far side of the room, remembering the small rubbish bin she had spotted in there the day before. She grabbed it and hurried back to her brother, passing it over to him.

"Okay, now stand back," Al said, pulling out his wand.

Lily did as instructed, taking several large steps back and away from the door. "Be careful!" she called after him as he threw open the door and disappeared into the cloud of smoke.

A second later, he burst back into the kitchen. He was carrying the bin in front of him, his arms stretched out as far as they would go. Smoke was now leaking out from beneath the lid and the smell was worse than ever, literally burning Lily's throat as she struggled not to breathe in too deeply.

Al turned and ran towards a second door the led from the kitchen out into the main hall. She heard him cough again and then the sound of footsteps as he sprinted up the stairs. From somewhere overhead came the sound of metal hitting glass. Then silence.

When she saw Albus again, he was leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom on the second floor, his hand clutching his side, breathing heavily.

"What did you do with it?" she asked him.

He pointed over his shoulder. "...Down...the...drain..." he panted.

Lily peeked around him and into the bathroom. A milky haze seemed to hover a few feet above the floor, but the room looked otherwise undisturbed.

"There's a sink in the kitchen, you know," Lily said, turning back to him. "Why didn't you just dump it in there?"

Al took another deep breath, as if trying to expel the last of the fumes from his lungs. "And risk turning the whole thing into a puddle of goo?" He shook his head. "I used the bath. Dad's got to replace it anyway. Who's gonna' know the difference?"

"Clever."

"I have my moments."

After a pause, she asked, "Any idea what that was? It didn't look – or _smell_– like anything I've ever brewed before."

Al shook his head again. "No, but whatever it was, it's gone now."

The potion may have been gone, but the smell continued to linger. Despite their best efforts, which included opening every window in the house that wasn't nailed shut, Grimmauld Place continued to smell worse than the boy's changing room after a Quidditch game. And it wasn't just the house that smelled either.

"You stink," Lily told her brother as they made their way across the back garden and into their own house less than an hour later.

"Excuse me?"

"You smell terrible. Whatever was in that bottle, you reek of it." She waved her hand back and forth in front of her nose to emphasize her point.

"Well, it didn't exactly leave you smelling like a rose."

Lily lifted up the collar of her shirt and sniffed at it. _"Ugggh,"_she groaned. "You're right. That's horrible."

At that moment, a single thought seemed to pass between them. Aside from the one attached to their parents' bedroom – which they weren't supposed to enter without permission – there was only one other bath in the whole house...

They each took off at a sprint, elbowing one another as they scrambled towards the stairs. They were neck and neck as they reached the top landing, but Al was bigger and stronger and with a final shove, he knocked her out of the way. A second later, he was locked in the bathroom and Lily was left alone, banging her fist against the door even as she heard the sound of running water coming from the other side.

Steadfastly refusing to sit around in smelly clothes, Lily went into her room, stripped down to her underwear and wrapped herself up in a white cotton robe. When she was done, she was careful to fold her soiled clothes up into a nice neat pile before tucking them between the sheets of Albus' bed.

When she returned to her room, Lily found she was not alone.

Perched on the corner of her desk sat one of the most unusual looking owls Lily had ever seen. It was large and black, with two great tufts of hair that sat perched on top of its head. It stared at her from behind two perfectly round, amber eyes, and in its beak it carried a small envelope, which it promptly dropped on the floor.

Lily bent down and scooped up the letter. She didn't even bother looking for a name on the front. She had no doubt who it was for or where it had come from.

_Can I see you again...soon?_

That was all it said. It was even shorter than the last note. Scorpius hadn't even bothered to sign his name.

Lily had known he would write her again. She'd been expecting as much. What she _hadn't_expected was to hear from him so soon. She thought she would have more time...time to figure out what she wanted, how she would reply.

But if she was honest about it, Lily didn't need any more time. She already knew what her answer would be. She'd known it before he'd even asked the question.

Lily began digging around in her desk, coming up a moment later with a spare piece of parchment and a quill. Dipping the pen into a half-filled bottle of ink, she began to craft her reply.

_I'll be in London tomorrow. Alone if I manage it right. Can you be there at noon?_

_- Lily_

Beneath her signature, she wrote out an address. Once that was done, she folded the letter in thirds before turning back to the bird, holding the piece of parchment out to it. The owl clicked its beak once before snatching up the note. It hopped across the desk and back towards the open window. Once on the ledge, it spread its massive wings. With a sharp kick of its legs, the bird was off and out of sight.

It was later that evening, just as Lily was about to crawl into bed, when the owl returned. The letter it carried was, as she expected, brief and to the point. Just three simple letters long:

_Y-E-S_

* * *

Lily knew it was risky to suggest that she and Scorpius meet up again so soon. But unless she wanted to wait until her grounding was over, she was going to have to sneak off to see him, so what was the point in delaying? At least she was already scheduled to be out of the house. And both her parents would – as usual – be at work. That only left Albus to contend with.

Lily briefly debated confiding in her brother, telling Al she would be going off to see Scorpius and that he better keep his big mouth shut about it if he knew what was good for him. But she quickly scratched that idea. Al may not be one for following all the rules but she couldn't imagine him letting her wander off on her own to meet a boy – especially one he wasn't particularly fond of – when she was supposed to be staying put under his watch. What would be in it for him?

That left Lily with only one option. If she was going to slip out and meet Scorpius, she was going to have to keep Al as far away from Grimmauld Place as possible. Fortunately for her, Lily's red hair and penchant for trouble weren't the only things she'd inherited from the Weasley side of the family, and it was going to take a special Weasley to help rid her of her brother for an afternoon. With the aid of one her Uncle George's more industrious inventions, Lily could all but guarantee that Al wouldn't be anywhere near London tomorrow. And while she didn't exactly relish the idea of poisoning her brother – even temporarily – she couldn't see any other way around it.

The next morning, Lily was up and dressed early, making sure she was downstairs long before Al even made it out of the bathroom. As she entered the kitchen, she half-expected to find her father sitting at the breakfast table, reading the paper while he drank his coffee. But the kitchen was empty. Apparently she wasn't the only one making an early start of it that day.

After waiting a moment to make sure there was no one lurking near by, Lily reached into her pocket and pulled out two tiny pink candies, each no bigger than the size of a bean. If everything went as planned, she'd only need one, but she figured she'd better play it safe and keep a spare near at hand.

Al was, to say the least, a creature of habit. Any minute now he would come downstairs dressed in jeans and an old Quidditch t-shirt, having not yet bothered to brush his hair. Then, just as he always did, he would fix himself three pieces of toast with raspberry jam, washing it all down with a large glass of pumpkin juice.

The plan she had devised was simple. She would slip one of her Uncle's candies into Al's morning drink. Then all she had to do was sit back and let the magic do its work. Holding her breath, Lily dropped the tiny sweet into the half-empty jug of pumpkin juice. It fizzed slightly before disappearing into the dark orange liquid. The job done, Lily set the jug on the table before slipping quietly back upstairs - intending to be as far away from the kitchen as possible when the moment arrived.

As expected,_ Weasley's Boil Bottom Bonbons _worked just as advertised. It wasn't long before Al was screaming and swearing so loudly Lily was sure the neighbors could hear him through the walls. Of course, she would have been shouting too if she suddenly found her backside covered in large, painful welts. Thinking on it, Lily could see why the candies had proven such an unpopular addition to the Skiving Snackbox collection. Who on earth would subject themselves to such a thing just to get out of lessons?

It took nearly half an hour to calm Albus down. Their mother, who was particularly good at staying cool during a crisis, had finally convinced Al to hold still long enough for her to cast a few spells she insisted would help ease the pain. Once Al was once again resting comfortably – or as comfortable as one could be stretched out face down on the sofa – the inevitable question was raised.

"What exactly did you get into?" their mother asked, propping another pillow up underneath his chin.

"_Me?_ I didn't get into anything. I was just sitting there when _WHAM!_This happened." He lifted one arm, waving it behind him in the general direction of his bottom.

"Well, you must have touched _something_. What about you, Lily? Did you notice anything?"

Lily shook her head, trying her best to keep her expression neutral; the right mix of confusion and concern. She'd been anticipating just this scenario and she'd rehearsed her part carefully. "No, I didn't see anything," she said but then stopped, as if just now recalling something that might be important. "Well, Al and I _did _come across a pretty strange potion yesterday. Maybe that had something to do with it."

"Strange how?" her mother asked, but Al cut in before Lily had a chance to reply.

"It was nothing, and besides, I was fine all night. Who ever heard of a potion that waits that long to take effect?"

"I'm sure there are lots of potions that take a while to kick in. Just cause _you've _never heard of any doesn't mean they don't exist."

"But you were there too," he said, "and there's nothing wrong with you."

"Well, I wasn't the one who carried it upstairs. I mean, you _were _pretty well covered in it."

Al didn't look convinced, but their mother seemed to consider the possibility. "Where's this potion now?"

"Gone. Al poured it down the drain."

"Well, it's always possible, I guess," her mother said, still thinking it over. "Though I don't of any potion that does..._that_." She was kind enough not to point directly at her son's backside. "Looks more like something from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, if you ask me." Lily swallowed hard at the mention of her Uncle's shop but said nothing. "But potions never was my best subject. We can take you over to St Mungo's and let a Healer take a look at you. I'd imagine they'd have a better idea of what caused it –"

"No way!" Al said. "I'm not about to have some stranger staring at my arse!"

"Language, Albus," their mother warned him.

"Fine. My_ bottom_ then. But the point still stands. I'm not going."

Mrs. Potter seemed to be weighing her options and Lily was silently praying she would side with Al. She hadn't considered that her mother might be concerned enough to drag her brother into see a Healer. If anyone figured out what she'd done, her three week grounding would likely turn into three years.

"Alright," her mother said at last. "We'll wait it out for the moment. But if it's not better by this evening, I'm taking you downtown. No arguments, alright?" Once she was sure Al was in agreement, she turned her attention back to Lily. "What about you? Are you going to sit around here with Albus, or do you want to head back to Grimmauld Place? I'm not sure I like the idea of you going there by yourself if there are dangerous potions lying around. Maybe your father and I should go back and take another look. Or I can ask Hermione to stop by."

Lily had been expecting a long, drawn out fight with her mother about going back to Grimmauld Place alone, but it seemed that in all the confusion, Mrs. Potter had forgotten Lily wasn't supposed to go anywhere unsupervised.

"They aren't just lying around," Lily assured her mother. "They were in the pantry, and one of the bottles had a crack in it. But the rest looked fine. And besides, I'm all done in that room anyway." That last bit was a lie, but if it made her mother feel better, Lily could skip cleaning over the rest of the pantry for now.

She could see her mother considering this latest piece of information. She'd already given into Al's about not being taken to hospital, and now she was debating sending her daughter off alone to face whatever hazards might still be lurking around that old house. Lily did her best to put on a reassuring smile, and finally her mother relented.

"Fine," she said. "I'll take you over myself on the way to work. But at the first _hint _of trouble, you send word straight to me or your father. Understood?" This last bit was directed at both her and Al, and they nodded their heads in silent agreement. "And I'll be back early. Lily, I'll pick you up at exactly three, so be ready to go."

Lily nodded again. She could feel the first stirrings of butterflies deep in her belly. Her plan was working. It looked as if she was actually going to get away with it all.

Once everything was all settled, their mother exited the room, telling Lily to be ready to leave in five minutes.

Alone now, Lily turned toward Albus, giving him a half-hearted smile. "I'm really sorry –" she began, but he cut her off.

"I know it was you."

Lily's mouth fell open in surprise_. "What—?"_

"And don't bother denying it either. You don't think I know the effects of Boil Bottom Bonbon when I see it? A first-year could have come up with something more original."

"But I didn't—"

"Oh, cut the act," he said. "I'm not going to tell Mum, so what does it matter? I can't prove it anyway. But I'm telling you, I _know_ it was you, and I've got a pretty good idea why you did it."

Lily said nothing. She just stood there staring at her brother, dumbfounded.

"Not so thick now, am I? And just think about this," he added, his voice so quiet now she had to lean forward to hear him. "If I'm any good at guessing, I'd say this has something to do with Scorpius. And it's been what? A week since he showed up again? And look what he's already gotten you to do_. To your own brother._ So, ask yourself, Lils. Is this really the kind of guy you really want back in your life? What possible good is going to come from hanging with a Malfoy?"

* * *

It was just after ten o'clock and Lily was back at Grimmauld Place, completely on her own, Al's warning still ringing in her ears.

She still had several hours left until she was set to meet Scorpius at the little coffee shop a few blocks away. Despite her brother's words, Lily felt alternately nervous and excited at the prospect of seeing her old friend again.

Having no interest at all in cleaning, Lily took to wandering aimless around the house, reexamining the dusty nooks and darkened corners she had explored with her mother during their first visit. There was little of interest along the way and before long, Lily found herself climbing up the short flight of steps that led to the upper most floor. She was planning to have a quick snoop around in the bedroom with all the covered furniture, but before she even reached the top of the stairs, something strange caught her eye.

She saw it without really registering what it meant. An open door – hardly an unusual sight. But it was, of course, _very_ unusual, considering what door it was. It was the door just to the left of the staircase – the one her mother hadn't been able to blast through despite her exceptional magical talents. The one Al was convinced had been enchanted with a spell strong enough to send him flying across the room. That door. It was open..._just a crack._

Lily stopped where she was, staring straight at the tiny opening that revealed only a sliver of the room that lay beyond. She felt herself reach into her pocket and pull out her wand, despite the fact that she knew she wasn't allowed to use it. A nearly impossible choice presented itself to her: walk over and push open the door, risking whatever spells might still be protecting the contents within, or turn around and walk away.

Hesitating for only a moment, Lily lifted her wand and used the end of it to push the door inward. It was heavy but put up little resistance, swinging noiselessly on its hinges. She paused in the doorway, half expecting to be blasted back into the hallway. But nothing happened. It was just like entering any other room in the house. That was, of course, until she saw what lay on the other side.

The room itself was a mirror image of the one on the opposite side of the hall: the same size, the same low ceiling, the same heavily draped window set into the far wall. But the similarities ended there. The room was in total disarray. A large mahogany wardrobe was lying open on its side, splinters of wood littering the ground beneath it as if it had been sent crashing to the floor with one heavy shove. The sheets had been ripped off the bed and thrown carelessly into one corner. The mattress has been removed and was now leaning against the window. Drawers had been pulled out of the desk and the bureau, their contents strewn across the worn carpet. Posters that had adorned the wall looked as if they had been torn at by wild animals, so shredded now that whatever they had once depicted was no longer recognizable.

There was no way to tell if the damage had been sustained recently or if the mess had been hidden away up there for years. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs, the air stale and smelling of mildew and decay. Looking down, Lily could detect the faint outline of footprints visible in the dust that had settled on the carpet. But as with the rest of the mess, she had no way of telling how long they had been there.

Lily carefully picked her way across the room, trying to avoid stepping on the larger pieces of debris scattered across the floor. She didn't know what she was looking for but she felt compelled to make a full examination now that she had come this far. To her untrained eye, there seemed to be no obvious focus for the destruction. Nothing had been spared the vandal's touch. Not even the mattress box spring had survived intact. She could see a giant slash running down its center, exposing the coils like the metal innards of a gutted animal.

After a few minutes, Lily had seen enough. She turned on her heals, heading back towards the door. An instant later she was flat on her face, the wind knocked out of her as she hit the floor with a loud _THUD!_

_"Ugggh,"_she groaned as the air was driven from her lungs.

For a second, Lily thought that whatever spell had gotten Albus had finally caught up with her, sending her crashing to the floor. But then she caught sight of the spot where she'd been standing only moments before. A piece of the floor had come loose and was now sticking up ever so slightly above the rest. She must have tripped out it and lost her footing.

A thought occurred to her then, so sudden it was like a bolt of lightening to the brain. Someone had been in that room looking for something...something small enough to be hidden in a dresser drawer or tucked inside a mattress. Or maybe, she thought, small enough to be hidden beneath an old wooden floorboard.

Lily scrambled to her knees. Using her fingers, she began pulling at the plank of wood, digging into it with her fingernails, trying to wrestle it from its resting place. It gave slightly but not enough to yank free. She looked around, spotting an ivory-handled letter opener sticking out from beneath the desk. Grabbing it, she wedged it firmly between the loose board and the one that lay beside it. After much twisting and turning, she managed to fit the tip of the knife up under the plank. With a _POP!_it finally sprung free.

The hole beneath was deep and dark. There had to be at least a foot between the floorboard and the rafters below. She reached in a tentative hand, her arm disappearing all the way down until even her elbow was hidden beneath the floor. With outstretched fingers, she felt around blindly. She was greeted with nothing but empty air. A wave of disappointment rushed over her. She had been so sure she was on to something.

And that's when she felt it. A tiny metal..._thing_. Wrapping her fingers around it, she pulled her arm upward. But it was too big; she couldn't get her hand and the object back up through the hole. She dropped it, grabbing it again but this time from what she hoped was a better angle. It worked. A second later, both her hand and the object were out from under the floor and resting safely in her lap.

The _thing_, it turned out, was a small silver box, like the sort her mother kept her jewelry in. Barely able to contain her excitement, Lily opened the lid. The inside was lined in purple velvet that was still soft to the touch despite its apparent age. Sitting in the bottom of the box were two items. The first was a folded scrap of yellowing newspaper. Lily noted immediately that it must have been rather old. The figure in the picture wasn't moving anymore, though the man depicted in it was clearly a wizard, dressed in dark robes and making no attempt to disguise the wand in his hand. He appeared to have been photographed mid-conversation, his mouth partly open as he seemed to speak with someone just to his left, out of sight of the camera.

Lily unfolded the paper. The printed words around the picture had begun to fade and were difficult to make out now. One thing, however, was very clear. Scribbled in large angry letters, the ink the color of midnight, was a handwritten message. It read:

_**THIS MAN IS NOT DEAD. HE IS VERY MUCH ALIVE.**_

Lily's eyes traveled back up to the photograph. The face was incredibly familiar, like that of someone she might have met a very long time ago. But before her mind could make the connection, she spotted the bolded caption just below the picture.

_**Recently Cleared Ex-Death Eater and Former Headmaster of Hogwarts Severus Snape in One of the Last Known Photographs Taken Before His Death.**_

No _wonder_ he looked familiar...

But what did it all mean? The man in the photo was Severus Snape, the caption told her as much. And according to had ever scribbled the message onto that scrap of paper, the man in the photograph was not dead. But that would have to mean that...

Severus Snape was very much alive.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

For the second time that afternoon, Lily felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. _It wasn't possible._ There was no way the man in the photograph was alive. Severus Snape was dead. Everyone knew that. Her own father had witnessed his death - _his murder -_at the hands of Voldemort. No, it just couldn't be true. Whoever scribbled that message was either sorely mistaken or else had a very sick sense of humor.

Setting the mysterious note aside, Lily turned her attention to the other item resting at the bottom of the box. It was a man's pocket watch, hanging from a slender golden chain. Or at least it _looked_ like a pocket watch. Lily popped open the cover. Inside was, as expected, a flat, white face, with large roman numerals running along the edges, marking out the hours. But in the center, just above the _VI_, was second, smaller face. Inside of that were nine strange symbols Lily was sure she'd never seen before.

As she examined it further, Lily thought she detected the faintest ticking noise coming from inside the watch. She lifted it to her ear. Instead of the usual _Tick, Tick, Tick_ of the second hand, the watch was beating out another, eerily familiar rhythm. _Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick_. It was just like the sound of a beating heart.

Lily pulled the watch away from her ear and looked down again at its face. According to the watch, it was a quarter to noon. She was supposed to meet Scorpius in less than fifteen minutes. She glanced down at her own watch, confirming the time. If she didn't want to be late, she was going to have to get moving.

Stuffing the watch and the newspaper clipping into her pocket, Lily replaced the lid and maneuvered the box back into the space between the floorboards. She did her best to secure the wood plank back into place, hammering it with her fist until it was once again level with the rest of the floor. Brushing the dust off the seat of her trousers, Lily headed out of the room, debating momentarily on whether or not to close the door behind her. In the end, she decided to leave it exactly as she had found it – with just the smallest sliver of space left between the door and the jam – before heading downstairs and out into the warm afternoon sun.

Half-walking, half-running, Lily made it to the cafe with less than a minute to spare. There was no sign of Scorpius yet, so she took a seat at one of the tables set up along the sidewalk. The air around her was heavy with the smell of cinnamon and chocolate. Through the shop window she could see row after row of sticky buns, biscuits, and muffins the size of her fist. It all looked so good, Lily wished she'd thought to grab some of muggle money she kept tucked under her mattress for just such emergencies.

Noon came and went, but there was no sign of Scorpius. More than once, Lily extracted the newly acquired watch from deep within her pocket, growing increasingly frustrated as noon became quarter-after, and then half-past, and finally quarter-to. By quarter-after one, Lily was getting concerned, wondering what in the world could be keeping him. She considered taking a quick walk around the neighborhood, checking to see if he had ended up at the wrong address, but she was afraid that if she wandered off, they might end up missing each other altogether. By the time two o'clock rolled around, Lily's concern had turned to annoyance, and finally outright anger. Her backside was growing numb from hours spent sitting in an uncomfortable chair, and the woman behind the bakery counter had started throwing disapproving looks her way, as if telling her those seats were for paying customers only. Lily had risked a lot to be there that afternoon, and Scorpius hadn't even seen fit to show up.

At half-past two, Lily decided she couldn't wait any longer. Her mother would be returning for her soon and Lily couldn't risk not being there when she arrived. With one final glance up and down the street, Lily headed off and back towards Grimmauld Place.

Mrs. Potter arrived to collect her at precisely three o'clock, and the two were soon home again. They arrived to find Albus looking well, having moved from the couch where they had left him over to the kitchen table, where he was busy polishing the handle of his Quidditch broom. He seemed to have recovered from his _"accident,"_making no further mention of his suspicions regarding what she had done, and Lily was allowed to retire to her room in peace, where she quickly stretched out across her bed, mulling over the day's events. It swirled around in her brain like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Her brother's accusations, the mysterious door, the cryptic message, Scorpius' failure to meet up with her as planned: try as she might, she couldn't make them fit together. As much as she wanted to arrange them into something meaningful, the picture they presented was little more than jumbled nonsense.

Without meaning to, Lily drifted off into a fitful sleep. When she awoke several hours later, she was disoriented, confused to find herself in bed still fully dressed. The room was dark now, the only light coming from a small desk lamp, which cast an eerie orb-shaped glow across the ceiling. The handmade quilt she usually kept at the end of her bed had been pulled up and draped across her arms – a sure sign her mother had been in at some point to check on her.

Lily looked over at the clock sitting on the bedside table. It was nearly midnight. The house around her was quiet and still. Despite the hour, Lily no longer felt tired. She considered going downstairs, realizing that she hadn't eaten a thing all day. But before she'd even managed to make it out of bed, she heard something that stopped her in her tracks. There was a strange scrapping noise coming from somewhere nearby. At first she thought it was one of her parents, their slippered feet dragging across the wooden floor. But as she listened, straining to hear, she realized the noise wasn't coming from inside the house.

Lily climbed out of bed and crept over to the window, trying to make as little sound as possible. It was nearly pitch-black outside, the garden below awash with shadows. Had it not been for the tiny blue glow hovering a foot above the ground, Lily never would have seen him. He was little more than a shadow himself, a shaky silhouette that disappeared almost completely into the darkness. Only the light of his wand gave him away.

Scorpius Malfoy was standing directly below her, his wand clenched between his teeth as he tried unsuccessfully to climb the ivy-covered lattice that hung outside her bedroom window. Every time he got more than a foot off the ground, the lattice would begin to bend under the added weight, rubbing against the house and making the strange noise that had drawn her there in the first place.

Lily wanted to shout at him to knock it off before he pulled the whole thing loose, or else fell off and broke his neck. It was a miracle that neither of her parents had heard him yet, and the last thing she needed was to have her father and mother come bursting into her bedroom to find a boy outside her window.

It took several seconds, but she was finally able to catch his attention. Putting up both hands, she signaled for him to stop. He seemed to get the message, letting go of the lattice and dropping back down to the ground with a small _thud_. He stepped back and away from the house, staring up at her expectantly.

Lily looked around, spotting a pair of beat-up trainers sitting beside her wardrobe. She quickly threw them on, not bothering to do up the laces. Seconds later she was back at the window, climbing out feet first, descending the lattice with an expertise that came from years of practice.

"What are you doing here?"she hissed. She had landed only feet from where he was standing, quickly grabbing him by the elbow and steering him deeper into the garden and away from the house. "In case you haven't guessed, I'm in pretty serious trouble after the other night. What were you thinking coming here at this hour? My parents will kill us both if they find you here."

They had stopped moving, coming to rest on the far side of the shed. Lily hoped it would be enough to muffle the sound of their voices. At least the surrounding blackness would keep them mostly hidden from view.

"Well, aren't you going to say _anything_–" But Lily stopped short, catching sight of Scorpius' face, illuminated by the pale glow of his wand. "Scorpius! What happened?"

His face was white as stone, devoid of all emotion, as if all the feeling had been drained out along with the blood. The skin beneath his eyes was a labyrinth of dark purple splotches. Lily couldn't tell if they were bruises or if he simple hadn't slept in days. The eyes themselves were bloodshot, an angry red that made them look like they were on fire.

"What happened?" she repeated. "What's going on?"

Scorpius shook his head, wincing as if the simple movement caused him great physical pain. "I don't know...It doesn't matter...I just had to see you." He was mumbling, and Lily had to strain to make out what he was saying. She wondered for a moment if he might not be drunk.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter? Of course it matters_. _Did you father do something to you?" She didn't know where the question came from. It just popped out of her mouth without a second thought.

But he shook his head again. "No. But you need to listen to me._ You've got to listen!"_His tone was intense, almost manic, and she noticed that his hands were trembling.

"Okay," she said, trying to keep her voice calm even as her own heart thudded in her chest. "I'm listening. Tell me what's going on."

"I had to see you. I was going to...this afternoon...but I couldn't. I couldn't get away. They were there...watching us."

"What, at your house? Who? Who was there?" He seemed reluctant to say, just staring at her, his eyes wide as saucers. "It's alright," she assured him. "Just tell me who it was."

"Your..._dad."_

_"What?"_Lily shouted, forgetting for a second that she was supposed to be keeping her voice down. A dog several houses away let out a loud bark of protest. "But that's ridiculous," she said, her voice dropping back down to a whisper. "Why would my dad be watching you?"

"He's been at the house all day. He's still there...I only just got away."

"That's not true. He's upstairs sleeping." Lily gestured toward the house but Scorpius was already shaking his head.

"No, he's not. He's at the Manor right now. And he's not alone. I heard them ring the bell, and when I went down to see who it was, I saw him. They were all heading into the study. When they saw me, they shut the door. But the other bloke – your uncle – kept sticking his head out to check on...something."

"But it—" she started, but he wasn't done yet.

"They wouldn't let me leave, either. None of them. Granddad practically stood guard at the door. Kept telling me to wait upstairs. I only got out once he finally fell asleep."

"But...but I don't understand. Even if he's there, like you say, what's the problem? Dad visits loads of people for work."

"That's just it. Don't you see? He's there _working._They know something...something about Gran. About how she died."

"Scorpius," she said in what she sincerely hoped was a reassuring tone. "That's a bit of a leap, don't you think."

"No, it's not. I told you, Father and Grandfather have been hiding something about what happened to her. And now the Aurors have caught on and they've sent your dad to investigate."

"But why? Investigate what?" Lily was having a hard time following Scoprius' logic. Even if she assumed her father _had_ been at Malfoy Manor all day, she didn't think it was anything to get so upset over. And why on earth would he be interested in the death of an old woman anyway? That didn't make sense unless...

"Scorpius...What _exactl y_do you think happened to your Grandmother?"

He seemed to almost sigh in relief, as if she was finally catching on. "They killed her. I know they did." She'd expected that would be his answer as soon as she'd asked the question, but it was still shocking to hear him say it with such certainty. "It's the only thing that fits. Maybe it was an accident...I don't know. But something bad happened to her and Father and Grandfather know exactly what it was. Why else would they be covering it up?"

"Who says they're covering anything up? Scorpius, that's a _really _serious accusation. And you've got no proof. Just because they don't want to talk about it with you doesn't mean –"

"It's not just that they don't want to talk about it. There's more to it then that. I've caught them whispering to each other, always shutting up the second I come in the room. And when I found her... Father, he was screaming at me. Not out of shock or anything, but like he was angry. Angry that I'd caught him before he had time to cover his tracks."

"Scorpius, I..." But she didn't know what else to say. Lily couldn't decide if he was talking crazy or if what he was saying made total sense. He'd been telling her all along that something strange was going on. And if he was right, and her father and uncle had been at the Manor all day, it almost had to be on official Auror business. They were no friends of the Malfoys. They wouldn't just drop by for a visit. And if the Aurors were involved, it almost had to mean something bad was going on.

"So what are you going to do now?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Dunno yet."

"Will you go back home?"

He shrugged again. "Haven't decided for sure."

"What can I...What do you want me to do?"

He hesitated, looking down at his feet. "I kind of thought that would be obvious..."

"What's obvious?"

"Well, I just thought that you could...look into it for me. _With_ me," he amended quickly. Lily didn't respond, not at all sure what he was asking her to do. "I mean, he _is _your dad and all..."

_Now _Lily understood, and she was none to pleased at the request. "You want me to _spy _on my father?"

"No, not spy. I didn't say _spy_. I just thought that you could have a look around. You know, like if he leaves anything lying about..."

Lily was incensed. This – all of it – the letters, the fight in the cottage, his failure to show up that afternoon, the crazed theories. It was so unlike the Scorpius she remembered, she wondered if there was any of her old friend left inside him anymore. And then there was her own behavior. Sneaking out of the house, lying to her parents, slipping potions into her brother's drink. She hardly recognized herself the way she had been acting the last few days.

"Look," she said, trying to keep her temper in check. "Even if I wanted to help you, do you really think I could find out anything useful without him noticing what I was up to?"

"You could if you wanted."

"Well I _don't_ want to, Scorpius. This is crazy. If you think something bad is going on then, I don't know... Go to the police. Talk to my dad yourself. This is over my head." Something else occurred to Lily then, and the mere thought of it made her blood boil. "Just how long _exactly_have you been harboring theses suspicions?" He said nothing. "Is that why you wrote me? Visited me? So I would get information for you?"

"No! It's not like that. Honestly."

"I don't believe you. I think you've been planning this all along."

"Lily, I swear. I wouldn't use you like that. I just...I just thought you could help."

"Well, I can't. And I think it's time you left. It's late, Scorpius. Go home."

Scorpius looked like he wanted to protest but after a moment seemed to think better of it. For her part, Lily just stood there, arms folded across her chest as she watched the last bit of hope drain from his face.

His shoulders slumped, head dropping in defeat, Scorpius slowly began to make his way back across the garden and out toward the street. He didn't bother turning around, and a moment later he was out of sight. How far he walked before Apparating away she would never know. She was already back inside her bedroom, her window shut up tight, before the faint _POP!_ rang out through the silence.

* * *

The bed was shaking.

"Lily, wake up!" The hushed whisper called out to her from somewhere in the darkness. "Come on. You've got to hurry."

Lily opened her eyes. Albus was standing just beside her bed, his hands pressing into the mattress as he leaned over her.

"What...?" she asked, her voice heavy with sleep. "What's going on? What time is it?"

"Never mind that. Just follow me..._and_ _be quiet._"

Albus made for the door, and Lily sat up, the clock beside the bed telling her it was just after four. She'd only just managed to fall back off to sleep.

"Come on," Al hissed, waving at her to hurry up.

Lily rose, her bare feet making no noise as she followed Al out into the hall. He was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, crouched down on his hands and knees, his head resting against the banister.

"What are you...?" she began, but he put a finger to his lips, silencing her.

The upstairs hallway was dark. The sun wouldn't be for another hour, but several lamps had been turned on downstairs and the faint yellow glow illuminated the foyer below.

Al motioned for her to join him and Lily stepped forward, bending down so that she was eye level with her brother. She stayed silent, listening carefully, and after a moment, she heard voices rising up from somewhere down below. They were muffled, but if she listened hard, she could make out most of what they were saying.

_"...exactly what I said. Obvious, wasn't it? Lying through his teeth..."_

Lily looked over at Al. "That's Uncle Ron –"

"Shhh," Al told her. "Just listen."

She focused back in on the voices trickling out from behind the closed kitchen door. The next one she heard belonged to her father.

_"...I mean, I didn't expect they'd come right out and give us what we asked for but..."_

Lily couldn't make out whatever came next, picking up the conversation again when she heard her mother say, _"So you think they're in on it together, then?"_

_"Of course they are,"_ her uncle replied. _"Fat chance they'll own up to it though."_

_"Well, what do you expect, Ron? I mean..."_

Lily again looked over at Al. "Is that...?"

But he was already nodding his head. "Yeah, it's Aunt Hermione. Now, be quiet and listen, will you?"

_"...but someone is dead." _It was her uncle talking again. _ "You can't cover that up for long. Did they really think no one would notice? Hasn't gotten much smarter with age, has he?"  
_  
_"It seems...to believe...we knew the...for years..." _Someone was pulling out one of the kitchen chairs, scraping it across the tile floor, and most of whatever her mother was saying to the others was lost in the subsequent shuffle.

When it was quiet again, she heard her father reply,_"Not much we can do at this point. Keep pressing, obviously, but we've got no proof."  
_  
_"And you're absolutely sure?"_

_"I am,"_ her father said. _"It's just a matter of proving it."_

_"It's terrifying,"_ her mother exclaimed. _"I mean, how on earth did he get a hold of something like that? Was it an accident, you think?"_

_"Always possible, but not likely,"_ her father was saying_. "Had to have stolen it, or been given it by someone. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing."  
_  
_"But who would..."_There were more scrapping chair and then silence again.

_"Well, I can think of a few,"_ said her Uncle Ron. _"Don't exactly hang out with the most savory characters, the Malfoys."  
_  
Lily gasped, forgetting she was supposed to be staying quiet. Up until that point she'd been struggling to figure out what the four adults were discussing so intently at this hour of the night. But now she was starting to understand.

_"...after all this time? That seems a bit far fetched, Ron."_

Lily could almost hear the shrug in her Uncle's voice. _"Not really. We've had more than a few cases like this over the years. Remember the Hatburns? And the Connors? Bob Connor was never the same after his wife died. Went a bit mental, that one."  
_  
_"Oooh, that's right,"_ Hermione said. _"I'd forgotten about that. What a dreadful thing that was. The poor kids. They weren't even Hogwarts age yet, were they?"_

_"Nine and six, I think,"_her father replied.

The four adults were silent again, as if pondering the gravity of what they were saying. When the conversation picked up again, it was Lily's mother who was speaking this time.

_"Is it safe to have him out on the loose? You don't think he'd —"_

_"Not much we can do about it at the moment," her father said. "We'll keep an eye on them, but if we act too soon, it will just ruin our chances of making a good arrest down the road. You can't rush a murder investigation - especially not one the Daily Prophet would sell their wands to get a lead on. But yes, I think it's safe for now. I doubt he even..."_

But Lily had stopped paying attention. _Murder? Arrest?_ Her head was swimming. She couldn't believe it. Scorpius had been right about everything. Her father and uncle had been at the Manor that day, investigating the death of someone that _had_ to be Narcissa Malfoy. And from the sound of it, Scorpius had also been right when he said that his father and grandfather knew more than they were letting on. _A lot more._ Was it possible? Had the two men murdered poor Mrs. Malfoy? It was almost unfathomable. But then...they _had _been quick to hush the whole thing up. No funeral. No mention in the newspaper. They wouldn't even explain to their own flesh and blood how the old woman had died. It seemed that either one or both of the men had played a hand her death and were now trying to cover for one another.

And what of Scorpius? He had come to her for help and she had sent him away. What if he returned home? What if the elder Malfoys realized he was on to them? Scorpius could be in real danger.

She forced herself to concentrate, returning her attention back to the conversation, desperate to hear more. But it was too late. The adults were apparently done discussing murder for the evening and had focused their attention on more mundane matters. Lily could hear her mother and aunt discussing Hugo and Al's upcoming trip.

_"...still hasn't started packing, of course. Expects I'll do it for him. Well, unless he does his wash soon, he'll have nothing but a pair of swim trunks and Ron's old dress robes to wear at Charlie's..."_

Lily listened for a few moments longer, and when she was sure she wasn't going to learn anything more, she turned to look at her brother. He was already on his feet, staring down at her.

"Come on," he said, tilting his head in the direction of his bedroom. "We need to talk."

Lily obeyed, standing up and following him inside. She took a seat at the end of his bed, snatching up one of his pillows and hugging it against her chest.

"How did you..." she began, but her voice betrayed her. She was too shocked to speak.

"I was on my way back from the bathroom when I saw the light on downstairs. I figured it was just Dad getting home late or something, but then I heard the voices."

"So...Dad's been gone all day then?"

Al nodded. "He missed dinner..._again_. Still wasn't back by the time I came up to bed. Guess he just got home. Ron and Hermione must have been with him."

Lily said nothing for a long moment, trying to take it all in.

"Are you okay?" her asked her.

"Yeah...I mean...I don't know. I don't understand what's going on." That wasn't entirely true. She _did _understand something. She understood that Scorpius had been right and she hadn't done a thing to help him. She'd just sent him straight back into the lion's den. "Al, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it obvious, isn't it? We've got to help him."

"Help who?"

"Scorpius!" Lily shouted the name, no longer caring that they were supposed to be staying quiet.

"Lils, look," Al began, his tone sober. "I don't know what you're thinking, but seriously, just stop it right now."

"But—"

"No. Listen to me. I knew you'd never believe me if I told you. That's why I woke you up, so you could hear for yourself. Whatever's going on with the Malfoys, whatever it is they've done, it's got nothing to do with you. Do you understand? You need to stay away from them."

"But how can I just stay away? Scorpius could be in real trouble."

"Whatever it is that's going on with you two, you've got to end it. Tonight. This isn't about me not liking Scorpius. I mean, I still think he's a prat for what he did to you but that's not why I'm doing this. This is serious, Lily. Someone's dead. Leave this to Dad, all right? It's way over your head."

Lily said nothing, surprised to hear Al repeating back the very thing she had told Scorpius only hours before. And of course, they had both been right. She was sixteen...not even allowed to do magic outside of school. What was she supposed to do about a murder? Still, how could she leave it alone? What if something happened to Scorpius and she had just stood by, doing nothing? How was she supposed to live with that?

She could hear voices again coming from downstairs. The group had moved out of the kitchen and into the entryway. From the sound of it, they were offering up their hushed goodbyes.

"You'd better get back to your room," Al told her.

Lily nodded, the mattress creaking as she stood. A minute later, she was back in her own bed, shivering slightly despite having pulled the quilt up to her chin. Over and over she heard the voice of her father saying those terrible things, interlaced with Scorpius' own admitted suspicions. Lily felt nearly mad as she lay there, staring up the ceiling, wondering what to do.

An hour later, just as the sky outside her window began to brighten, sleep took her again, and Lily drifted off into a dream world of mayhem, murder and Malfoys.

_A/N - Thank you so much to those that have read, reviewed, favorited and/or followed this story. Any and all forms of support are so very appreciated. If you are enjoying this and are interested in other next-gen stories, I'm also working on a Rose-centric fic called "Over the Edge." It's on my author's page if you care to take a look. Thank you again._


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

All the Potters slept late the next morning. It was nearly ten before Lily finally rolled out of bed. At first she thought it strange that no one had bothered to wake her, but then she remembered it was Saturday. Apparently even she and Albus weren't expected to work on the weekends.

The scent of cooking sausage and burnt coffee wafted up from the kitchen, and for a moment Lily felt safe and comforted as the normality of domestic life wrapped around her like a blanket. But the feeling didn't last long. Her feet had hardly hit the floor before the events of the previous evening came flooding back.

Lily assumed that Albus would have filled their parents in on everything that was going on between her and Scorpius as soon as he had awakened – maybe even going so far as to tell them about the little stunt she pulled yesterday. She was therefore pleasantly surprised when she entered the kitchen and found the atmosphere relaxed, her parents enjoying a rare quiet morning at home.

"Morning, sleepyhead," her mother said as Lily took her usual place at the breakfast table.

It was clear that everyone else had already finished eating, their plates stacked up in the sink. Albus was nowhere in sight but she could tell he had been there recently thanks to the mountain of fresh crumbs left on the table in front of his chair.

Her mother was in the middle of reading over a rather lengthy piece of parchment while her father, standing in front of the stove, tended to something sizzling away in the frying pan.

He looked over at Lily from behind his wire rim glasses. "We thought we heard you moving around up there. Just heating the bacon back up. You hungry?"

Lily nodded, surprised to find that she was starving. Maybe it was the smell of home cooked food or just the fact that she had slept straight through dinner the night before; whatever the reason, Lily was famished.

Her father fixed a plate and set it down in front of her. In addition to the bacon, there were fried eggs, toast and grilled tomatoes. It was a veritable feast and she dug in greedily, finding it harder to dwell on the unpleasantness of the previous day with a mouth full of breakfast meat.

"Have any plans for today?" her mother asked her, setting aside whatever it was she'd been reading.

"No," Lily said, taking a large gulp of juice. "I'm grounded, remember?"

"Oh, I remember." She mother cast a long look over at her father, who nodded back at her. "Your father and I were just discussing it, as a matter of fact.

_Uh-oh_, Lily thought. _That couldn't be a good sign. Maybe Albus had tattled on her after all._

"And we decided," her mother went on, "that just for today, we'd all go visit Luna and the kids. You think you're up for it?"

Of course Lily was up for it. What else was she going to do? Sit around thinking about Scorpius all afternoon? She'd already been thinking about him all night. She'd even considered writing to him, telling him that she knew now that he had been right to be suspicious about his father and grandfather. But to what end? She still couldn't do anything for him. Even if she wanted to, trying to spy on her father would be pointless. He was always careful never to bring his work home with him. And besides, being right about what had happened to his grandmother didn't change the fact that she still believed Scorpius had been using her to get information. For someone who had spent the better part of the last week lying to just about everyone, Lily couldn't stand the thought that Scorpius had been untruthful with her.

"Well, I should warn you," her mother was saying. "They've been planning something. I don't know what exactly, but Luna wanted to know all about your birthday plans and whether or not we had already gotten you a Rotting Rigsbirth – whatever that is. I told her not to make a fuss and that you were getting too old for parties but she insisted. I've no idea what she's got up her sleeve, but whatever it is...Well, let's just say, put on a brave face about it, alright?"

Lily would have agreed to just about anything if it meant getting out of the house for the day, and by three o'clock, she, her mother, and her father were climbing the three stone steps that led up to the Scamander's front door. It took several knocks before anyone answered, but when the door finally opened, Lily saw that the entire Scamander family had gathered to greet them. In front was Luna, all bulging eyes and dirty blonde hair that reached down the length of her back. Lily knew she was the same age as her mother, but there was something youthful and innocent about her the woman – as if she might never grow old. Luna was flanked on either side by two nearly identical twin boys, both just as fair as their mother. On her right was Lorcan, a broad, crooked smile plastered across his round face. On her left was Lysander, a slightly smaller, slightly skinnier version of his brother but with the same mischievous grin. In the back stood Mr. Scamander. He was the odd one out, which was really saying something in a family made up of entirely odd people. He was a great deal taller than his wife and sons, with deeply tanned skin and hair the color of chocolate, which he wore long and tied back at the base of his neck.

"See, I knew they wouldn't be late," Luna said in way of a greeting.

After everyone had been properly welcomed, the Potters were led into the main parlor. Lily had been in the home many times before but she'd certainly never seen it looking like this. All the mismatched furniture and strange collectibles that usually covered the floor had been pushed up against the walls. A large table had been set up in the center of the room. On it sat the oddest collection of food Lily had ever seen. Mini pork pies, licorice wands, pickled onions, treacle pudding, tiny jars of homemade chutney, Pepper Imps: on and on it went. The accumulation of differing smells wasn't altogether pleasant but it was clear someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set out such an unusual spread.

And it wasn't just the table of food that caught Lily's eye. Not only had someone been busy cooking up a feast, someone had also taken great care to decorate the adjoining rooms with banners and ribbons and balloons in every color and pattern imaginable. Purple streamers that twirled and swayed without the need of wind hung from the rafters. A string of lime green triangles, each containing a picture of Lily at various ages, was draped across one window. Bunches of balloons with phrases like '_Let's Get Silly, It's Your Birthday, Lily'_ and '_Ain't It Keen, You're Seventeen' _were tethered to the backs of chairs and or else floating free, bobbing against the ceiling.

Lily was dumbstruck, not to mention heartily embarrassed. She had known Luna might cause a fuss – she did so like celebrations – but this was a bit much, ever for her. And apparently Lily wasn't the only one who thought so. Judging from the looks on her parents' faces, they hadn't been expecting such a display either.

"Luna, we told you not to go to any trouble..." her mother said.

"It wasn't trouble. It was wonderful fun," Luna assured them all with a bright smile. "I'd been all set to do the same for Rose last year, but Hermione seemed rather reluctant about the whole idea. Perhaps it's a muggle-born thing. Do they celebrate coming of age, dear?" She turned toward her husband but Mr Scamander was busy chiding the twins, each of whom were elbow deep in a bowl of peppermint humbugs.

As it turned out, the food and the décor were only the first in a string of surprises bestowed upon Lily that afternoon. It wasn't long before the little house was full to bursting with a collection of family and friends, all there to celebrate her special day – though technically she wouldn't turn seventeen until midnight.

The first to arrive after the Potters were Lily's Grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Next came her Uncle George and Aunt Angelina, accompanied by their youngest daughter, Roxy. Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione arrived about an hour later – Hermione insisting they would have been there on time if it weren't for Ron dragging his feet, hoping to hear the end of some "silly Quidditch match on the radio."

Lily was grateful they had come but disappointed to see that Rose was not with them.

"She's gone into work," her aunt told her, seeming to read her thoughts. "She sends her best though and promises to come visit you as soon as she's got a day off."

"That's what weekends are for," Uncle Ron said to no one in particular. "What's the point of being eighteen if you spend all your free time locked up in an office? She should get out more."

"That's not what you said when she told you she was off to see Barnaby next month," his wife reminded him, referring to Rose's new boyfriend.

"Yeah, well, that's cause he's a git. Have you seen the way he walks? He looks like a drunk hippogriff. And Barnaby. What kind of name is that?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and the two continued to argue over the matter as they passed into the kitchen to join the rest of the party.

The last to arrive was Lily's eldest brother James. On his arm was a girl Lily had never seen before. She was pretty in the sort of way her brother seemed to like: tall and thin and dressed in just slightly less than what was appropriate for the occasion. James probably thought the scowl on her face meant she was sophisticated and having deep thoughts. Lily thought it looked like she had stepped in dragon dung.

"Hey, birthday girl," James said, giving Lily a hug and tucking a small box into her hand. "This," he said, gesturing toward his date, "is Joanna. She couldn't wait to meet you."

Joanna's lips twitched in what Lily supposed was meant to pass for a smile. "Yeah, happy birthday, Liza," she said, looking at a spot just over Lily's head.

"Actually, it's..." But before Lily had a chance to correct her, the girl had already turned and wondered off.

James gave his sister an embarrassed shrug before following after his date like a lovesick puppy.

At some point, a very short, plump woman with frizzy brown hair and pointed, pearl colored glasses had slipped into the party unnoticed by Lily. She must have been a friend of the Scamanders as she was now in deep conversation with Mr. Scamander, who towered over the dominative stranger as they talked animatedly about something Lily couldn't hear.

While it wasn't exactly the party Lily had imagined for her seventeenth birthday – with hardly anyone there her own age – the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. That was, of course, minus the incident with the invisible ink – a birthday gift from her Uncle George. Though he feigned innocence on the matter, he hadn't seemed all that surprised when the ink pot exploded and left a not-so-invisible stain on her new party dress. Aside from that, there was plenty of food and cake and even a few party games, the oddest of which involved each guest having to try and guess the amount of Aquavirius Maggots a person could fit inside the average cauldron. Her Uncle Ron's guess proved to be closest and he was rewarded with his very own maggot in a jar, a prize he tucked into a nearby potted plant as soon as Luna's back was turned.

By eight o'clock, the party was beginning to wind down. Uncle George and his family had already left, as had James and his girlfriend, and the strange little woman whose name Lily had never learned. The remaining adults had moved into the back garden and were now perched comfortably on wooden folding chair, enjoying the last of their drinks as evening descended.

Lily was left alone inside the house. The sudden quiet after all the noise and celebration left her feeling cold. She could already feel her mind threatening to dredge up the events of last night. She didn't want to think about it. Not there, not after such a nice afternoon on a day meant for celebration. Desperate for a distraction, Lily wandered upstairs in search of the twins.

The top floor of the Scamander home consisted of one long hallway with several rooms branching off on either side. Lily could hear the boys talking in loud whispers behind the last door on the right, which was marked with a large 'Do Not Enter' sign written in child's hurried scrawl.

Lily knocked once and the voices inside fell silent.

"Who is it?" one of the twins called after a long pause.

"It's just me," Lily said.

She could hear the two boys talking to each other again in hushed tones. A minute later, the door opened, leaving a crack just wide enough for Lysander to stick his nose through.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

Lily nodded but then realized he might not be able to see the gesture and added, "Yes. Everyone's outside or else gone home."

She watched as Lysander stepped back, allowing the door to open another few inches. He stuck his blonde head out, looking up and down the empty hallway. He called back over shoulder to his brother. "It's just her. Should I let her in?"

Lorcan must have given his approval because Lysander stepped aside, allowing Lily into the small bedroom. It had been a long time since Lily had occasion to be in the twins' room but she found it hadn't changed much. It was still full of toys and games and books, all brightly colored and crammed into wooden chests or else piled several feet high on the shelves that lined the walls. Everywhere she looked, she saw coloring books, tins of crayons, action figures, and even a child-size potion kit – which she knew from experience didn't actual brew any potions. The jars themselves were enchanted so as to turn whatever liquid was put inside them an ugly shade of puce.

Lorcan was sitting on a hand-woven rug spread out in the center of the room. Lysander closed the door behind Lily and resumed his spot on the floor next to his brother. Spread out between them was a giant map that had certainly seen better days. There were several large creases running up and down the page, and one of the corners was missing completely.

"Mind if I join you?" Lily asked. The boys scooted over to make room for her on the rug but were too focused on the map to bother offering a proper reply. Lily took a seat next to Lorcan, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, which was prickly and tickled the backs of her bare legs. "What are you doing?" she asked, trying to sneak a quick peek of the map over Lorcan's shoulder.

"Planning," the boys said in unison.

Lysander pointed out something to Lorcan, who shook his head is disapproval. "Not a chance," he said. "Too far. Besides, not enough trees for cover. See," he said, pointing to a spot just to the left of where his brother had indicated. "That green stuff, it means trees. And we're gonna need a _lot_of trees."

Lysander nodded in silent agreement, as if his brother's point was well received.

"Are you two planning a trip or something?" she asked.

"Not a trip," Lysander said. "It's more like...a mission."

"Well, that sounds exciting. Is it a secret mission, or can you tell me about it?"

The boys looked at each other. Lysander shrugged, which seemed to indicate he was okay with bringing in another co-conspirator.

"Well," Lorcan began, "it's not _really_ a secret, I guess. Only we don't want anyone to know about it just yet...until we've got it all worked out. Understand?" Lily nodded solemnly, amused at the seriousness of his tone. "Well, you see, Mum and Dad are planning this holiday up north on the islands. We were _supposed _to go today but then Mum remembered about your birthday, so now we're not going 'til tomorrow. Anyway, Ned says they've got a new family of baby Hebridean Blacks up there and would Mum like to come up and take some pictures for her new book. 'Course Mum said yes, so now we're all going up together."

Lily had no idea who Ned was but she knew enough about Hebridean Blacks to know they were a breed of dragon usually found on the Hebrides Islands. Looking back at the map, she could see now that the boys had been examining a very detailed drawing of the inner islands – the coast of Scotland little more than a wavy line bordering the right side of the page.

"Anyway, me and Lysander, we've been thinking," Lorcan continued. "See, Ned said _baby_dragons. That means they won't be too big yet, right? So we figure, when no one's looking —"

"We might snag one and try and take a ride on it!" Lysander burst in excitedly, unable to wait any longer for his brother to spit out the best part.

"That's why we need cover, see?" Lorcan added, ignoring his brother's bubbling enthusiasm and continuing to explain their plan in a very matter-of-fact tone. "So nobody spots us. We'd be in for it if any muggles saw us. And then when we're done, after we've had a few goes, we just sneak it back home. Shouldn't take more than a few hours, if we stay close to the reserve."

The two of them looked at Lily expectantly, waiting for her to confirm the sheer brilliance of their plan.

"Well," she said, not wanting to hurt their feelings but not about to encourage them either, "don't you think that's all a bit dangerous?"

The both shook their heads emphatically, but it was Lorcan who answered her question first. "They're only babies. How dangerous can they be? Besides, Mum says your dad fought a dragon once. And he's not even that tall or strong or _anything_. The two of us can manage a small one, no problem."

"Still," Lily said, making a mental note to ask her father when he had ever fought a dragon, "you shouldn't take things that aren't yours. That's stealing, you know."

"Not if you give it back, it isn't," Lysander told her in a sing-song voice.

Lily was about to argue the point further but she didn't have the chance. There was a sudden flurry of voices and activity coming from downstairs. And it didn't sound like the normal chatter of people preparing to head home for the night. Something was definitely going on.

"Quick, take this!" Lorcan was suddenly on the move, folding up the old map as fast as he could, ripping one of the corners in his haste before handing it to Lily.

"Me?" she asked in surprise. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Hide it! If Mum and Dad see, they might start asking questions. Just put it in your pocket or something and come on!"

Lily did as she was told, and in an instant the three of them were out the door and heading downstairs.

"...but I don't see why that means you have to go running off this minute," Lily heard her grandmother say as they descended the steps, unnoticed in the excitement of whatever was going on.

All the adults had gathered in the narrow entryway, her father and Uncle Ron hastily throwing on the robes they had discarded during the course of the party.

"It was our office, Mum," Uncle Ron said. "What do you expect us to do?"

"But wouldn't _someone _have contacted you about it? I mean, at least sent a letter or something?"

"Probably did," her father replied. "Only none of us were home to get the message. Ready?" he asked, turning to Ron, who nodded. "I'll send word as soon as I know anything," her father said, giving her mother a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Me too," Ron told Hermione.

"Thanks for everything, Luna. You too, Rolf." Her father extended a hand to Mr. Scamander, who shook it eagerly.

"Be safe, Harry," Luna added in an airy voice.

"Yes," Mr. Scamander said. "And do let us know if there's anything we can do."

Without further word, Lily's father and uncle turned and headed out the front door and into the encroaching darkness.

"Well, of all things," said the eldest Mrs. Weasley once the two men had disappeared from sight. "And won't you put that away, Arthur!" she snapped at her husband, who looked down at the newspaper in his hand. "It's rubbish. I won't be half surprised if the boys arrive only to find the whole business has been a total misunderstanding, or else just another vicious lie."

"Oh, come now, Molly," her grandfather crooned, though Lily noticed he dropped the paper on a nearby chair. "The _Prophet's _been a lot more reliable these days. Remember that article they did on me after I retired? They got most of it right, eh?"

"Well, there's certainly no accounting for taste on subject matter then, is there?"

The adults moved back into the kitchen, still discussing the matter, while Lily, Lorcan and Lysander slipped quietly into the hall.

"What was that about?" Lorcan asked, but Lily ignored him. She had already picked up the discarded newspaper, reading the headline on the front page of the evening edition of _The Daily Prophet._

_**Senior Officials Targeted In Ministry Break-In. Prank or Pilfer: What's The Motive? **_

"Let me see," Lorcan demanded, pulling at her arm.

"What's it say?" Lysander asked, he too trying to crane his neck to get a better view.

"Shhh!" Lily snapped, reading on.

_Earlier this evening, Ministry spokesman Malachi Grudgeman confirmed a break-in had been detected at the offices of two of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's most senior officials. The break-ins, which occurred at approximately six o'clock, were – according to Grudgeman – targeted attacks._

_"This was not random," Grudgeman said when pressed by the reporter for details. "The perpetrator had a clear intent in mind when he entered the building. Security Wizards have verified the individual entered the Ministry and headed directly to the offices in question. He seemed to know exactly where he was going."_

_When asked about a motive, Grudgeman refused to speculate. "We'll find out in time," he said._

_At present, it is still unclear how the individual gained entry into the Ministry or how he expected to remain undetected. _

_"Even during weekends, the Ministry's full of people, all of who need our protecting," said a Security Wizard, who wished not to be identified. "We don't no take chances with safety."_

_The offices in question belong to two well-known, high-ranking Aurors: Ronald Weasley and Harry James Potter, both most famous for the roles they played in the _Last Great War._ Due to the age of the suspect, some are already speculating the break-ins may have been some sort of prank._

_When asked for his opinion, the unnamed Security Wizard had the following to say: "Well, probably someone just wanted to snag a bit of history, no? Maybe try and make a quick knut? Loads of people would pay good money to get their hands on something that belonged to Mr. Potter."_

_Very few details regarding the suspect are being released at this time. Scorpius Malfoy, 18, youngest member of the once-prominent Malfoy family of Whiltshire, is said to now be in custody for the crime, though where he is being held has not yet been disclosed._

_(story continued on page 3)_

Lily had to read the last paragraph over again before its meaning truly began to sink in.

_Scorpius was in custody after trying to break into her father's office at the Ministry._

She couldn't believe it. What had Scorpius been thinking? But of course, Lily knew _exactly_what he'd been thinking. He been thinking that if she couldn't get him the information he needed, he'd have to go off and get it himself. Only he'd ended up getting arrested instead.

This had gone too far. No matter what Scorpius had or hadn't done to her, it was clear he was in serious trouble, and she couldn't just stand by and let him self-destruct. But Albus was right. This was over her head. Scorpius needed help, and not the sort she could provide. She was going to have to tell someone and quick.

Lily dropped the paper - which the twins immediately began to argue over - before turning and heading off in search of her mother.

* * *

"But, Mum! You're not _listening_—"

"Lily, I _am_ listening. I've been listening for the last ten minutes. I've heard it all, but the answer is still _no._"

Lily hadn't known what to expect when she burst into the Scamander's kitchen and began baring her soul to her mother – telling everyone within earshot how she'd been sneaking about, spending time with a boy who was convinced his own relatives were involved in a murder, and who himself had just been arrested. But whatever she'd been expecting, it certainly wasn't apathy. She would have been less surprised if her mother had leapt to her feet, gathered up the rest of the family, and headed off to confront the Malfoys about what they had done to poor old Narcissa. Ginny Potter was woman of action, after all. But instead, she just stood there staring at her daughter with a mixture of bewilderment and disapproval.

"But this isn't right. He needs our help! Don't you care at all?"

"The only thing that's not right around here," her mother said, "is your behavior. Not only have you been lying to me but now you're making a scene when we are supposed to be guests in someone else's home—"

"But none of that matters, don't you see that? Mrs. Malfoy is dead and you're worried about being rude_?_"

"Perhaps we should at least let Harry know about all this," interjected the eldest Mrs. Weasley, who had set down the bowl she'd been pretending to dry with an old dish towel for the better part of the last five minutes.

"I've got this, Mother!" Ginny said, putting up her hand to stop the woman before she could continue on.

"See?" yelled Lily, jumping on the opportunity. "The rest of them know you're being unreasonable. All I want—"

"Enough!" Mrs. Potter said, cutting her Lily off just as quickly as she had cut of her own mother. "This conversation is over. And so is your relationship with the Malfoys. It's done, do you hear me?"

"You can't tell me who to be friends with!"

"Oh, yes I can. And I just did. You've got no further business with Scorpius. Your father is the only one in this family to have contact with that boy. What he's gotten himself into has got nothing to do with you."

"But -" Lily began again, her bottom lip trembling, her face flushed with anger.

But her mother simply refused to hear another word about it. No matter how much Lily shouted and begged, Mrs. Potter wouldn't budge. On the verge of tears and embarrassed at having her concerns so flippantly dismissed in front of the rest of her family, Lily finally accepted that the argument was over, and after a few hasty apologies to the remaining party guests, her mother Apparated them both back home.

Lily didn't dare bring up Scorpius again after that, and a gloomy silence settled over the Potter house in the days that followed. It rained nearly constantly, the weather reflecting Lily's own persistent state of agitation and melancholy. Her birthday came and went without further celebration, the fact that she could now legally do magic rendered meaningless as she was now being watched so carefully by her parents, she couldn't so much as sneeze without them asking her what she was up to.

Lily made no attempt to contact Scorpius. This had nothing to do with obeying her mother's demands to stay away from the Malfoys. She simply had no idea how to reach him. Assuming he was still in custody, Lily hadn't a clue where he was being held or if post would even be delivered under such circumstances. And on the off chance he _had _been released, Lily thought it unlikely he would have returned home unless forced to do so. She had no idea where he might go after that.

But despite all this, Lily had not given up hope of helping Scorpius. Every night after her parents had gone to bed, she'd lock her door and spend hour after hour combing through old textbooks and papers and anything else that might be buried at the bottom of her school trunk. She knew it was a long shot, but it occurred to Lily that if she could figure out what had killed Narcissa Malfoy, maybe someone would finally start taking her seriously. Maybe if she discovered the truth, people would realize Scorpius had only been acting out of desperation, and that it was his family – and not Scorpius – who were the real criminals.

Unfortunately, Lily had very little to go on. She knew from Scorpius' letter that his grandmother had been found at home, covered in blood. Beyond that, she had no idea as to the manner or cause of death. She was inclined to rule out anything strictly muggle-related. Knowing the reputation of the elder Malfoys, she just couldn't see either of them resorting to such tactics. Potions also seemed an unlikely possibility; Lily couldn't think of any potion that caused a person to bleed the way Scorpius had described.

Lily did manage to compile a list of more than two-dozen possible curses that might have been used on Mrs. Malfoy – all able to cause serious injury or even death, particularly if used on a defenseless old woman. Still, it was far from the conclusive proof she'd been hoping for. There was no telling how many other types of horrible spells might be out there. She only had her schoolbooks to go off of, and they weren't exactly manuals on dark magic.

By the end of the week, Lily had exhausted all the resources she could get her hands on and had begun the task of restacking all the books and roles of parchment back into her trunk before anyone else could see the mess and figure out what she'd been up to. She was about halfway done when she came across a book that she hadn't yet looked at. The gold lettering on the front read: _Modern Magical Marvels and Wizarding Wonders: The History of Our Age._It was a text from her History of Magic class. She hadn't bothered with it until then, knowing it contained little in the way of spellwork and wasn't likely to provide much insight into what had killed Scorpius' grandmother. But as she stared down at the title, something began to stir in the back of her mind – something that until that moment had been pushed away by more pressing matters. She thought back to the strange little box she had found in the locked room on the top floor of Grimmauld Place - the one with the tiny scrap of folded newspaper hidden inside it.

Curious, Lily flipped to the back of the book, finding the index and locating the section labeled "S". Her fingers strolled down the page, passing names like _Shacklebolt, Shingleton_, and _Smith_. And then, just above the bottom, she saw it:

_Snape, Severus (1960-1998)...p327-333_

Lily quickly flipped though the pages, not sure what she was expecting to find. It wasn't as if she didn't already know the man's story. One doesn't have a brother named - at least in part - after a person without knowing _something _about him. Still, it wasn't as if he was a common topic at the dinner table.

After a few seconds, Lily found the page she was looking for. It was the start of a chapter labeled _The Last Great War. _Her eyes slid over the first few paragraphs, noting her own name – or actually that of her Grandmother Potter – reflected back at her in several places. But it wasn't until she reached the bottom of the page that she came across what she was looking for.

The heading read: **Severus Snape, A Conflicted Report. **

Below that were four short paragraphs.

_Severus Snape (9 January, 1960 – 2 May, 1998), son of witch Eileen Prince and muggle Tobias Snape, served as Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1981–1996, leaving the post to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts from 1996-1997, and finally serving as the school's Headmaster from 1997 until his death during the Battle of Hogwarts. _

_Reports of Snape's association with a group of Lord Voldemort's followers known as the Death Eaters began almost as soon as he completed his education in 1978. During his 1981 trial before the Wizengamot, convicted Death Eater Igor Karkaroff named Snape as one of Lord Voldemort's most loyal supporters. However, no charges were ever brought against Snape, thanks mainly to the testimony of Albus Dumbledore _(Grand Sorc., Order of Merlin - First Class)_, who swore under oath to Ministry Officials that Snape had turned double agent at great personal risk to himself._

_Little is known about the personal activities of Snape between 1981 and 1997, during his tenure as a professor at Hogwarts. He remained largely out of the public eye until the death of Dumbledore in June, 1997. Though initially accused of the murder by Harry Potter _(see page 289)_, Potter would go on to champion the good deeds Snape had done following the man's death later that year, reportedly at the hand of Lord Voldemort himself._

_Potter provided full testimony on Snape to the Grand Counsel on Wizard Affairs, set up following the conclusions of the _Last Great War_. According to Potter, Snape remained loyal to Dumbledore's effort to thwart Lord Voldemort, including protecting Potter as he searched for ways to undo the life-extending spells Voldemort had performed on himself. However, little in the way of evidence regarding these claims has been provided and many questions about Snape's true loyalties remain unanswered. While Potter and many of his associates remain staunch supports of the former professor, many more continue to believe that Snape was, at least in some capacity, responsible for atrocities performed under the brief rule of Lord Voldemort. Testimony provided by many credible wizards place Snape at the scene of several vicious Death Eater attacks. Few on either side, however, would disagree that Severus Snape was a very powerful wizard with deep knowledge of the magical arts – both light and dark – and whose talents were likely to have been highly coveted, whatever the cause._

Lily skimmed through the pages that followed, noting Snape's name mentioned a few more times as having been at one battle or another, but garnering little else in the way of details. She closed the book, setting it down on the bed beside her. It was odd reading about Severus Snape in that manner. Lily had been raised to think of Snape as a hero - just like her father. And while she knew Snape may not have been the kindest man, he was – at least according to her dad – one of the bravest men her father ever knew.*

Curiosity once again took a hold of Lily and she stood up, looking around for the watch that had been hidden along with the newspaper clipping of Snape. It was several minutes before she remembered she'd never taken the items out of the pocket of the trousers she'd been wearing the day she'd meant to meet up with Scorpius. She turned her focus to the large pile of dirty clothes that had collected in the corner of bedroom. As she reached down, she noticed something odd. There was a strange grinding noise coming from somewhere nearby.

She stopped, listening closely. It was coming from somewhere within the pile itself. Lily quickly began rummaging through the clothes, throwing aside dirty socks and wrinkled t-shirts. The noise was growing louder, like rusty gears rubbing against each other.

She found it then: the tiny golden pocket watch. Lily could see now that not only was the watch humming and clicking, the little hand – the one that pointed at the strange symbols she'd noticed the first time she set eyes on the watch – was spinning and shaking. She carefully reached down, picking up the timepiece, but the instant she did, the object fell silent. After a moment, she set it back down again, and the watch immediately resumed its whirring and clicking, the little hand moving left to right, like a compass needle in search of North.

_Like a compass..._

That was when it hit Lily. Quickly setting the watch aside, she began rifling again through the pile of clothes, stopping when she found what she was looking for. Her soiled party dress: the one with the great purple ink stain still visible on the front. In the pocket, just where she'd left it, was the map Lorcan had given to her for safekeeping.

Picking up the watch again, she moved back to her bed, hastily unfolding the map and spreading it out across her quilt.

Working on pure instinct, Lily set the watch in the center of the map. The tiny hand jumped, swinging wildly back and forth before settling on a single point. Lily slid the watch carefully toward the spot indicated. The makeshift needle began to move again and once more she followed its direction. Back and forth across the map she went, nudging the watch forward only to pull it back again. After several minutes of this, the tiny hand stopped moving.

Looking down, she saw that it had aligned itself with one single spot, and no matter which way she pushed or pulled the watch, the hand remained glued in place – refusing to budge. And that's when Lily knew. She had found it – found it without even looking for it. Found it without really understanding how. Lily had found the location of a man half the world considered a hero, the other half a villain, but all of whom believed was dead.

She had found the location of Severus Snape.

_*This line is not a direct quote but is inspired by Harry's Line to Albus in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

In that moment, Lily knew she had found the answer to Scorpius' problem.

Of all the places in the world to hide, Severus Snape had chosen a spot little more than a stone's throw away from where the Scamanders were spending their summer holiday. It was so perfect Lily could have laughed out loud had she not been so concerned about waking up her parents

How silly it all seemed then – looking for dangerous curses and spells in the pages of her schoolbooks. What she now had at her fingertips was the location of a man who very likely knew more about the Dark Arts than any other wizard alive today. Added to that, Snape had actually _known_ the Malfoys. Been to their home. Her father had told her as much. Surely Snape knew what kind of people they really were – what they were capable of. Perhaps even what type of dark magic they might favor. If Lily was lucky, it might only take Snape a few hours – maybe less – to figure out what had really happened to Narcissa that night in the Manor. And while it might not be enough to set Scorpius free, it was her best hope yet for helping him clear his name.

Lily was sorely tempted to sneak out of the house that very instant and start making her way up north. It already seemed like ages ago since she first read about Scorpius' arrest – even longer since he'd appeared outside her window. But she knew she had to remain calm, to think things through. She couldn't exactly _walk_ all the way to Scotland. And what if, _just maybe_, she was wrong? What if she got all the way up there only to find out the watch wasn't what it appeared? She was sure to be found out by her parents – sure to be in even more trouble than she was now. And if she was going to be punished for sneaking off, she was first going to make damn sure it wasn't all for naught.

So Lily came up with a plan. She spent the next few hours writing and rewriting a letter to Lorcan. She had debated including both twins in on her secret, but in the end decided to place her trust in Lorcan alone. Though he was young, he was also brave and adventurous and just a bit more likely to keep the whole idea a secret. Lysander, after all, had been just a bit too eager to tell her all about the boys' plan to _borrow_ a dragon for an afternoon.

The final draft of her letter was brief. In it, she told Lorcan how he would need to sneak away from his parents for a few hours – an easy enough task for someone as precocious as he was. After that, it was only a matter of following a few simple directions, having a quick look around, and then heading back to the reserve before anyone had a chance to notice he was gone.

_Just see his face, _Lily wrote._ Just see his face, make sure it's him, and then run home as fast you can. And remember, stay well out of sight!_

In exchange for his help, Lily promised to give Lorcan half the money she'd been paid for cleaning up Grimmauld Place. She thought that was more than fair considering the whole thing shouldn't take him more than few hours.

Thanks to a quickly performed Gemino charm, she managed to produce a fairly accurate replica of the map, which she tucked into the envelope beside the letter, having already circled the spot where she was nearly certain Snape was hiding. Along with the map and the note, Lily also added the newspaper clipping – the one with Snape's picture on it. She had torn away everything but the image itself, removing all traces of the man's name and the ominous warning that had been scribbled beneath it.

With the package now complete, there was only the small matter of figuring out how to send it. Lily didn't have an owl of her own. Normally she'd ask Albus to help her, but he'd already left on his trip with Uncle Charlie. And it would be far too risky to ask one of her parents to send it. _So how then was she going to get it to Lorcan?_

Unable to come up with an answer, Lily set the package aside for the moment and stretched out across her bed. Despite her excitement over _finally_ having a real plan for helping Scorpius, the recent string of late nights were starting to catch up with her. The moment her head hit the pillow, Lily fell off to sleep just as the sun began to rise.

Lily woke with a start several hours later, her mother's voice calling out to her from the other side of the bedroom door. "You better hurry up or you're going to be late! Don't tell me you're still asleep in there. It's your Apparition test today..."

Lily bolted upright, nearly tumbling out of bed. In all the madness of the past few weeks, she had completely forgotten about her Apparition test! The whole thing had been scheduled months ago. Most sixth-years were able to take the exam while still at school, but she'd been forced to wait until the summer, until after her birthday. She'd made her parents promise to take her as early as possible, finding the first day the test was being offered after she came of age. That day, it seemed, had finally arrived.

It took Lily less than ten minutes to get washed and dressed and make her way downstairs.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" her father asked her. He was seated at the breakfast table, finishing his coffee, watching as Lily paced anxiously around the kitchen. As he wasn't scheduled to go into work until later that afternoon, it was decided that he would take her down to the Ministry, where all the Apparition tests were administered during the summer holiday.

Lily pulled a face. She couldn't bear the thought of Apparating on a full stomach.

"You aren't nervous, are you?" he asked.

Lily gave him a half-hearted shrug. As much as she hated to admit it, she was _petrified. _She hadn't Apparated on her own in months – not since she and all her fellow sixth-years had been gathered in the Great Hall and forced to spend an afternoon making their way clumsily in and out of giant golden hoops. What if she couldn't do it? What if she forgot everything she'd learned? Or worst of all, what if she _splinched_ herself?

"Don't worry," he father said, giving her a reassuring smile. "You'll do great. Strong Apparition skills run in the family." Lily must not have looked convinced because after a quick glance at his watch, he added, "Tell you what. We've still got an hour before you've got to be there. What do you say we go sneak in a few practice rounds? Just you and me."

That sounded like the best idea Lily had heard all week, and within minutes, the pair were making their way out to the back garden.

"Let's start small," her father said, picking up two large sticks and setting them back down in the wet grass about three meters apart. "You stand over there." He pointed at the stick off to Lily's left. "Whenever you're ready, you Apparate over to the next one. Sound good?"

Lily nodded, taking a few hesitant steps forward, stopping when her toes were resting level with the first stick.

"Whenever you're ready..." her father said again.

Lily let out a deep breath, thinking back on all the things she had learned that day in the Great Hall. _Be determined. Move without haste, but with focus and deliberation* _She thought back too on all the times she had side-along Apparated. The twisting of the feet, the tug behind the navel, the feeling of suffocation as all the air was pressed from her lungs, invisible weights crushing down from all sides.

Afraid she would scare herself straight out of doing it if she thought about it much longer, Lily held out her wand with a trembling hand, raised herself up on her tiptoes, squeezed her eyes shut, and spun. There were two small _pops!_ and the next thing Lily knew, her father was calling out to her.

"Excellent!" he shouted, clapping his hands. "Really well done."

Lily slowly opened one eye, looking down at her feet. They had come to rest less than an inch away from the second stick. She let out an audible sigh of relief. _She had done it._ And more than that – she touched her hand to her face, feeling to make sure everything was still in its place – she'd done without spliching so much as an eyebrow.

"Ready to try again?" her father asked.

She flashed him a wide grin. "Absolutely!"

In the end, Lily managed four nearly perfect Apparitions. Each time her father would move the sticks farther apart, and each time she would manage to disappear beside one and reappear again beside the other. Lily would have been content to keep on practicing for just a bit longer but her father insisted that they really ought to get going, especially since they would need time to register her wand before the exam. Reluctantly, she agreed and with more confidence than she would have thought possible only an hour before, Lily took her father's hand and the two vanished from sight.

The test, it turned out, was actually rather easy, especially in the wake of her early morning practice session. By eleven o'clock, Lily was back at her father's side, her Ministry-issued Apparition License clutched tightly in her hand.

"Did you pass your exam on the first try?" Lily asked her father as they exited the Testing Centre and headed towards the lift that would take them back up to the Atrium.

"Actually, I never sat for it, to tell the truth."

"_What?"_

"You knew that," her father said, but Lily shook her head. "Really? I never mentioned it? Well, I was a bit busy, wasn't I? Being on the run does tend to put a damper on one's plans."

_Of course,_ Lily thought. Her father had been exactly her age when he'd left school. She'd known that, obviously – heard him speak about it on a few _very_ rare occasions. But it wasn't until that moment that she realized all her father had accomplished when he was only just as old as she was now. The letter to Lorcan, the one she'd tucked into her pocket earlier that morning – seemed to burn white-hot against her skin.

"I say this calls for a celebration," her father announced as the gates on the lift slid shut and they began their ascent. "What do you say you and I go to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch? We haven't been there together in ages."

"_Really?"_ Now that the worst of it was over, Lily's appetite had returned and she was suddenly starving. "But I'm still grounded, aren't I?"

"True..." he said, "but you've still got to eat, don't you? And you only pass your Apparition test once. Though," he added after a pause, "maybe it's best we don't mention it to your mother."

Lily beamed up at her father and he returned the gesture. It was nice to see her father looking so relaxed. It wasn't something she saw much of these days. And although she hated to spoil their afternoon, Lily knew his good mood wouldn't last forever. Now might be her best chance for getting her letter off to Lorcan...

"Would it be alright if we stopped by the Owelry first?" she asked, trying her best to sound as casual as possible. The two had just arrived back at the Atrium and were in the process of making their way out of the lift. Lily had to raise her voice to be heard over the sudden throng of people as they filed into large corridor that served as the main portal for visitors and employees making their way into and out of the Ministry. "It's just that I promised I'd send this to Lorcan." She pulled the envelope out from the pocket of her jeans, holding it up so he could see the name printed on the front. "It's just some information about dragons Uncle Charlie gave me awhile back. Only, the twins will be waiting for it. And I _did_ promise..."

Lily wasn't proud about lying to her father, especially after the way he helped her prepare for her exam, but she couldn't see any other way around it. If she wanted to help Scorpius, she was going to have to break a few rules.

In the end, the lie worked, and after a quick detour to the Owelry, the pair were back in the Atrium, waiting their turn to step into one of the oversized fireplace that would take them directly to the Leaky Cauldron. They were just nearing the front of the queue when a small piece of parchment folded into the shape of a hummingbird suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began pecking her father about the head. He grabbed at the note, missing once before finally snatching it up and hastily unfolding it. She watched him as he read it, his expression one of surprise, then annoyance, and finally alarm.

"Not bad news, I hope," she said.

Her father sighed, folding the note up and tucking into his robes. "Not bad, exactly. Just...urgent."

They had reached the front of the queue. When neither of them stepped forward to take their turn in the hearth, the man behind them let out a loud cough.

"Come on," her father said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the side. "It looks like I'll need to take a rain check on that lunch."

After promising to make it up to her another day, her father Apparated Lily home before immediately turning around and heading back to the Ministry. For the first time in a week, she found herself completely on her own. No older brother lording over her. No parents watching her every move. No parade of relatives with flimsy excuses dropping by to make sure she was staying out of trouble.

For one brief moment, her newly-minted license still clutched in her hand, Lily considered throwing all caution to the wind and Apparating directly up north. She'd find Lorcan, tell him to ignore her letter – that she would investigate things on her own. But she quickly dismissed the idea. She may have _passed_ her exam but she still hadn't Apparated more than a dozen meters at any one time. What if she got lost? No one would have a clue where to start looking for her. No, she decided. It was best just to stick with the plan and wait for word from Lorcan.

And word wasn't long in coming. Two days later, Lily woke to the sound of tapping just outside her bedroom window. She threw off the covers and leapt out of bed, nearly squealing in delight at the sight of the Scamander's owl sitting on her windowsill. Lily snatched up the letter that had fallen from its beak and immediately tore open the envelope.

The note was short, printed in a child's hand, ink smudges clearly visible in the corners. It read:

_It's him. I saw him. And he is a terrible monster. Stay away, Lily. STAY AWAY! _

Before Lily even had time to process what it all meant, her mother's voice rang up from somewhere below.

"Lily Luna Potter! Get your butt down here. _NOW!"_

* * *

"What were you _thinking, _getting a boy that age mixed up in something like this? How could you, Lily? I thought you had more sense than that."

Mrs. Potter was yelling again. She seemed to be doing that a lot these days – and most of it directed straight at Lily. For her part, Lily was trying her best to look like she hadn't a clue what her mother was going on about – all the while trying not to think about the letter she'd just gotten from Lorcan, which was now tucked into the pocket of her dressing robe.

"And don't bother denying it," her mother was saying, staring down at Lily, who was seated at the kitchen table, hands folded and resting in her lap. "Luna's already written and told me you sent something to the boy. She's in a complete state – doesn't know what to do. One minute Lorcan gets a letter from you, and the next thing she knows, he's up and run off. Doesn't bother to tell anyone where he's gone or what he's up to. He just disappears without a word. They're frantic, looking everywhere for him. They don't know what to think. And then just as quick as he's gone, he's back again, only now he's soaked to the bone, covered from head to toe in mud – not to mention scared out of his mind, convinced he's being chased by a monster."

_Monster._ There was that word again. Lily felt a shiver run down her spine.

"And now," her mother went on, "he won't sleep. He's too scared to close his eyes. Refuses to so much as leave his room. Luna's beside herself."

Lily felt her insides squirm, a feeling altogether worse than Apparating. Worse than drinking Skele-Gro even. Lily had made a big mistake and now, it seemed, Scorpius wasn't the only one in trouble.

"Well?" her mother said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Do you have _anything_ to say for yourself?"

"I..." Lily stammered, but she didn't even know where to begin.

If she confessed everything now, the whole plan would come to an end right then and there. She would be grounded until she was thirty and she'd very likely never see Scorpius again. And _that_ was assuming anyone would even believe her. No one had taken her seriously when she told them Scorpius was in danger. They weren't likely to believe her when she told them she'd sent Lorcan off to find a man that supposedly died more than twenty-five years ago. But if she said nothing, kept her mouth shut, she might be putting Lorcan in even greater danger. Could something terrible really have happened to him?

"Was...was it a spell?" Lily asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Lorcan. Was he hit by a spell or a curse or something?" Lily was grasping at straws, looking for any reason _not_ to tell her mother the truth. Anything to force down the guilt that was rising in her throat like bile.

Her mother just shook her head in disbelief. "Lily, it's got nothing to do with magic! He's been scared out his skin and I want to know why. I want to know what you sent him that made him run off like that."

So Lorcan _hadn't_ been attacked, at least not with magic. She supposed that was something. At least she hadn't put Lorcan in any physical danger. But that still left Lily with a serious dilemma. As best as she could tell, she had only two choices: tell the truth and hope that somehow helped Lorcan, or keep her mouth shut and try to find a way to salvage her plan to save Scorpius. She knew, at least, that Lorcan had a family to see him through his troubles. As for Scorpius – his family _was_ his trouble.

And so Lily made her choice. "I don't know, Mum. I really don't. I just sent him some stuff about dragons. Maybe he went off to find one and got a little too close. Honestly, I don't know _what_ could have scared him so badly..."

Lily stared at her mother, who stared right back at her, their brown eyes locked on one another. Lily half expected her to start yelling again, to tell Lily she knew she was lying and that she wasn't leaving that kitchen until she told her just what exactly was going on. But her mother didn't yell. In fact, she didn't even look all that angry anymore. She looked almost..._fearful._

"Lily," her mother said, her voice calm now but firm. "I'm only going to ask this once. Is there anything – _anything at all_ – that you want to tell me about what's going on with you? With...Scorpius?"

She returned her mother's gaze, not daring to blink. Without missing a beat, Lily said, "No, Mum. There's nothing going on at all..."

And with no real proof that she'd been involved in Lorcan's brief but mysterious disappearance, Mrs. Potter was unable to think up a reasonable excuse for prolonging Lily's punishment and her grounding officially ended the next day. But in truth, being grounded didn't matter to Lily all that much anymore. In light of everything that had happened, being in trouble with her parents no longer seemed important. She was way past worrying about such things anymore. She had bigger problems now.

The business with Lorcan was only part of it, though it had served to make two things clear: One, that whatever she was getting into was dangerous and she'd do best to keep the rest of her friends and family out of it. And two, that she had been right. Severus Snape was alive and she now new without a doubt _exactly_ where he was hiding.

And if all that wasn't enough to convince her it was time to take matters into her own hands, the small story tucked at the bottom of page three of that day's _Daily Prophet_ made it all but crystal clear that there was no time left to waste.

_**Suspect Linked to String of Ministry Break-Ins**_

_New developments have emerged in the ongoing investigation of the break-in at the Ministry of Magic first reported on here last week. Suspect Scorpius H. Malfoy, 18, originally apprehended after breaking into the offices of two high-ranking members of the Department of Magical Law enforcement, is now facing new charges stemming from an earlier attempted break-in at the Ministry back in May of this year. The first break-in was unsuccessful and no suspects in the case were ever named. Now, it appears, officials believe Malfoy was the culprit behind both incidents. Details linking the two investigations have not yet been made public and no trial date for either case has been set. Malfoy remains in custody following his arrest last week, though where he is being held is still unknown at this time..._

It was rubbish, all of it. Lily was sure of that. There was no _way_ Scorpius could have been involved in a break-in attempt in May. He, just like all the other seventh-years, had been at Hogwarts until the first of June, sitting for his N.E.W.T.s. He couldn't have been anywhere near London at the time. He might be of age, but students weren't allowed to just leave the castle any old time they pleased. It was absurd to even suggest that he somehow managed to sneak past all those teachers – not to mention the protection spells – that kept intruders from breaking into Hogwarts and students from breaking out.

This, of course, meant only one thing: Scorpius was being framed, and Lily had a strong suspicion who was behind it. What better way to distract people from their own crimes than by making the rest of the wizarding world think Scorpius was the real criminal in the family? How long would it be until Draco and Lucius Malfoy tried to pin a murder on their own flesh and blood?

It seemed to Lily it was only a matter of time now. If she wanted to save Scorpius, she was going to have to prove that the elder Malfoys were behind the death of Narcissa. And to do that, she needed to see Severus Snape. To beg him to help her.

Whatever he may have done to scare Lorcan, whatever _Monster_ he may have become, Lily had to take the risk. She had to go see the man...she had to go see him _tonight_.

_A/N: Thank you again to all of you out there who may be reading this. It might be a few days before I post again (I've got a backlog of chapters on my other story to finish up), but the next chapter will mark the return of Snape and I hope it will be worth the wait!  
_

_*Imperfect quotation pieced together from several lines in Chapter 18 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince._


End file.
